Towards a Platform for Widespread Embedded Intelligence - ERCIM

The CRUISE Project -
Network Initiative for Creating Ubiquitos
Intelligent Sensing Environments
by Gabriele Kotsis, Anelia Mitseva and Neeli R. Prasad
Recent developments in research and technology have drawn attention to wireless
sensor networks as one of the key enabling technologies of the next ten years.
ubiquitous intelligent sensing environments have a promising future in supporting
the everyday life of European citizens, bringing important social benefits for each
person and for society as a whole. Taking into account the current fragmentation
of European research in this field, the CRUISE Network of Excellence (NoE) aims
to be a focal point in the coordination of research on communication and
application aspects of wireless sensor networking in Europe.
CRUISE's NoE partners are combining
their efforts to make a significant contribution
to both the coordination and the
effectiveness of research into the communication
and application aspects of
WSN in Europe, promoting not only
open cooperation between individuals
and organisations from European
academia, but also research into cooperation
with industry. The main aim for
CRUISE is to push for a broad integration
of actions and to become one of the
Network integration and research activities.
focal points for these actions, with the
strategic goal of greatly strengthening
the European position in this area of
research. CRUISE is to amalgamate the
majority of European research entities in
the field of Wireless and Sensor
Networks. It is doing this on the understanding
that this critical mass will put
the European Wireless and Sensor
Networks research community in a position
to successfully compete with the US
and Asia and to provide support for
SPECIAL THEME: Embedded Intelligence
European industries in this field. These
high-level objectives are pursued in
activities such as:
• evaluating state-of-the-art wireless
sensor networking and collating
research topics covered in CRUISE
and in Europe into a knowledge model
• depicting a path from current technological
status to a successful near-term
and long-term vision, by creating the
vision and roadmap on necessary
research in wireless sensor networking
in Europe
• implementing a set of well-defined
joint research activities and publishing
white papers and a joint book providing
an integrated research view
• sharing and integrating methods, software
tools and test-beds and making
an inventory of the existing platforms
and evaluating of the experiences
using them
• facilitating the mobility of researchers
and PhD students as a key factor for
integration and rationalisation of
research efforts
• creating distributed PhD teaching curricula
and training curricula in sensor
networking and related topics;
Organising regular CRUISE Schools
as a tool for training young researchers
and communicating with the industry
standardisation community and international
research community
• organising open collaboration events
with industry, SMEs, academia, other
projects with participation of experts
from Europe, the USA and Asia, ie,
cluster meetings, workshops,
roundtable discussions, web-based
tutorials, discussion forums, etc., to
exchange and discuss ideas and to further
elaborate thoughts exploiting
CRUISE results.
The joint programme of research activities
(see figure), is structured in four selfcontained
but still inter-related clusters:
Cluster A - Architecture and Topology;
Cluster B - Protocols and data fusion;
ERCIM News No. 67, October 2006
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