Prospects of Distributed Wireless Sensor Networks for Urban Environmental Monitoring

Traditionally, the overlap between electronics and aerospace technology was limited to avionics, radars, satellites, and telecommunications. Sensors networks are emerging as an additional area of relevant interaction. In fact, in addition to the classical paradigm in which on-board sensors improve the navigation and control of aerial vehicles, e.g., in the fly-by-wire context, novel paradigms of cooperation between fixed networks of ground sensors and airborne ones are emerging today, especially for monitoring the environment. In this paper, we review current development trends and open challenges with reference to practical examples. We focus on the role of sensor miniaturization, energy harvesting, energy-aware communication architectures, and data fusion. Multidisciplinary development teams, with expertise spanning from microelectronics and data analysis, to operation of UAV swarms are expected to be necessary to address these challenges.