Description: Information about the world and its local environments is becoming increasingly available due to the development and deployment of sensors. Deployed sensors include those on satellites, from NASA's "Earth Observing System' for research into the Earth's biosphere, land, atmosphere and oceans to NOAA's weather satellites. However, Sensor Webs are by no means restricted to large systems involving satellites. For example, components of ocean observing systems include buoys, especially for coastal region monitoring. The coupling of sensor data and Internet connectivity has resulted in huge volume of sensor data that would be of interest to researchers. A key question is 'how can individual researchers easily find, access and manage sensor data streams of interest to them?' We propose a Sensor Management Tool (SMT) that supports the individual researcher in finding, accessing and managing sensor data. Intelligent Automation Inc (IAI) and Southeastern Research Universities Association (SURA) are collaborating on SMT: it will be open source and it will utilize the NASA World Wind Java SDK for visualization. Our proposed Sensor Management Tool (SMT) is standards-related and incorporates Community Discovery aspect.

Benefits: The Sensor Management Toolkit (SMT) can be effectively utilized in other types of applications. This includes the utilization of the SMT as a management tool in perimeter surveillance systems, as a management tool in bio-surveillance systems, etc. DoD customers such as the Army and Government customers such as Homeland security will be interested. Also, commercial areas such as large property management firms are potential users of SMT.

This effort will lead to the development of the Sensor Management Toolkit (SMT). Researchers in NASA Earth Sciences will be able to utilize the SMT.