CRUISE IST Project

by xkech — last modified 2006-07-24 19:37

The Network of Excellence (NoE) CRUISE focuses on the communication and application aspects of wireless sensor networking, including all related and supportive technologies.

The field of sensor networking research has been attracting tremendous interest particularly since it has been demonstrated that concepts for multi-hop self-organizing networks with energy-efficiency as a primary constraint are feasible, and that high levels of the miniaturization of network nodes, under the guiding vision of smart dust, are just a matter of time. In the USA, which is home to many of the recent important advances in this research field, including progress in the design of novel protocols, operating systems, embedded software and innovative hardware, sensor networking enabling technologies, developed within the top Universities, are realising their exploitation potential through spin-off companies. This has opened the field for many new applications. Indeed, the potential for innovative user-centric applications is one of the most exciting aspects of sensor networking, which creates a high motivation for working on the variety of challenging research topics.

At present sensor networking is driven by two partially opposing trends: that of using the open software, or firmware, which can be freely customized in the application-specific way, and that of standardizing general protocols. These trends pose many unanswered questions to sensor network integrators and application developers that sometimes result in a weakening of the collaborative process with the research institutions, which may be attributed to a fear of the competition.

CRUISE aims to be extremely active in working against this trend by promoting discussion and strengthening research cooperation between industry and academia, while maintaining an academic nature.

CRUISE participants bring to the Network their broad experience and the demonstrated excellence of many years of high quality work in their respective fields. In addition they will bring a strong commitment to integrate within and beyond the boundaries of the consortium.

CRUISE intends to act as a catalyst for the creation of an environment yielding the long-term success of the wireless sensor networking community in Europe. This objective will be facilitated by close co-operation with industrially oriented fora and with other existing NoEs and Integrated Projects (IPs) focusing on aspects of the ongoing research in wireless sensor networking.

The CRUISE project will mark the start of a long-term research and education co-operation between leading European universities and research institutes. CRUISE will provide the foundation of this network and will continue its role to promote accompanying research beyond the initially funded period.

The CRUISE consortium is committed to serving the European research community and industry, and the European citizens. The results of CRUISE will be available to interested European research organizations, and to the wide public.