Major Challenges Facing the Practising Systems Engineer

Large Volumes of Heterogeneous Data Current and future data are in large volumes (not all relevant), numerically intensive (often requiring parallel algorithms for processing), multidimensional, heterogeneous, distributed, typically worked on specialized search engines, and represent multiple views (to the various users from engineering team members, to marketing, to sales people, to management, and to customers). Example 1. Sensor Networks for NASA's GPM Project Estimates of rainfall made in space need to be callibrated against Ground Station Measurements. From Space Dual frequency radar and multi-frequecy radiometer. From Ground-Level Rain gauges. Example 2. Sensor Networks for Security of Buildings Multiple sensor modalities must be used for the detection and classification of intruder and chemical/biological threats to a busy building. All sensors should be connected via a wireless network. Information processing must be able to work with a variety of data formats: Motion detectors. Acoustic sensors (microphones). Image sensors (cameras). Temperature, chemical, and biological sensors. Magnetic sensors. Key research challenges include: Sensor fusion among heterogeneous sensors, and Techniques for rubust performance and security -- no false alarms!

Section 3-4: April, 2003.