1. IEEE SECON, October 6, 2004 Research Funding for Sensor Networks: An Academic Perspective Bhaskar Krishnamachari Autonomous Networks Research Group Department of Electrical Engineering-Systems USC Viterbi School of Engineering http://ceng.usc.edu/~anrg bkrishna@usc.edu

2. 2 Autonomous Networks Research Group Advisor for 8 PhD + 1 MS students from EE and CS The mission of this group is to perform high-impact academic research in the emerging technology area of wireless embedded networks. Focus on algorithms and analysis pertaining to routing, querying, medium access and localization in wireless sensor networks. Gang Kiran Avinash Narayanan Dongin Shyam Marco SundeepRahul

3. 3 Current NSF Funding Co-PI on ITR: Structural Health Monitoring Using Local Excitation and Large-Scale Networked Sensing, PI: Ramesh Govindan, Co-PI’s Eric Johnson, Sami Masri, and Gaurav Sukhatme, 9/2003-8/2008 PI on CAREER: Mathematical Models for Querying and Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks, 6/2004 - 5/2009 PI on NeTS-NOSS: Data-Centric Active Querying in Sensor Networks, Co-PI: Prof. A. Helmy, 9/2004 - 8/2007 Other sources of funding: Industry gift grants from Bosch and Ember USC Zumberge Interdiscplinary Research Award, 2003

4. 4 ITR: Structural Health Monitoring Goal: Design sensor networks for improving the safety of structures (buildings, bridges, ships, aircraft, spacecraft) Research focus: –Local excitation based damage identification –System components for fine- grain structural monitoring Multi-disciplinary effort: –Ramesh Govindan (CS), Erik Johnson (CE), Bhaskar Krishnamachari (EE), Sami Masri (CE), Gaurav Sukhatme (CS)

5. 5 CAREER: Mathematical Models for Querying and Routing Goal: Provide a theoretical grounding for analysis and optimization of sensor network protocols Research Focus: –Observe-model-validate process –Application-oriented protocol analysis –Data aggregation techniques –Impact of link layer effects –Flow optimization formulations Protocol protocol selection parameter selection Application traffic placement topology Environment channel condition spatial correlation data dynamics

6. 6 NeTS-NOSS: Active Querying Goal: Develop energy-efficient techniques for query resolution and resource discovery in sensor networks Research Focus: –Provide a key building block for information gathering in WSN –Intelligent active query guidance techniques –Provide tunable performance, exploiting reactive updates and caching with Ahmed Helmy (EE)

7. 7 Funding Challenges Lack of proposal writing experience –particularly new faculty Breaking into new area –understanding state of the art –identifying appropriate topics –establishing credibility Tough competition, low acceptance rates Inter-disciplinary collaboration –how to initiate –how to conduct

8. 8 Writing a compelling NSF proposal Do your homework: read the CFP, discuss with others, look at examples Motivate the significance of specific problem being addressed Identify the underlying fundamental scientific challenges Show that your approach is innovative vis-à-vis state of the art Show that your approach is promising, through preliminary results Describe methodology and a systematic plan of action and evaluation Prove that you are the right individual/team to work on this problem Develop a management plan (for larger proposals) Explain the broader impact of the work Integrate research closely with education and service activities Include supporting letters from any external collaborative partners Persevere: Revise, improve and resubmit well-rated proposals if unfunded New Faculty Tip: Offer to serve on NSF panels

9. 9 Academic Funding Priorities Pursue research that addresses meaningful and challenging theoretical and applied problems in sensor networks Need to emphasize research into fundamental analytical/algorithmic/software/hardware building blocks and tools Application studies are useful too, but not just flashy demos --- need to innovate technically, go well beyond the state of the art Foster and encourage genuine multi-disciplinary collaborations and academia-industry collaborations Encourage and invest in community-building and reusable common resources*: online bibliographies, data-banks, remote test-beds, tools and models * E.g. The ANRG SensorNetBib (http://ceng.usc.edu/~anrg/)