Environmental Effects

Sensor networks can be significantly impacted by environmental effects from electromagnetic (EM) fields, temperature, humidity, background noise, obscuration, and for acoustic sensors outdoors, the effects of wind, turbulence, and temperature gradients. Environmental effects on EM waves include the effect of the sun’s radiation, the ionosphere, and, most important to unattended ground sensor (UGS) communications, the humidity and moisture on the ground. Measuring the environmental effects directly can provide an information context for image features and automatic target recognition. The syntax for logically discounting or enhancing the weight of some features in response to the environment creates a very sophisticated and environmentally robust UGS. The most common environmental factors cited for electronic sensors are temperature and humidity, which can impact “error bars” for bias and/or random sensor error. The prudent design strategy for intelligent sensors is to, at a minimum, characterize and measure the environmental effect on the sensor information reported while using best practices to minimize any negative environmental effects.