CIRCLE: An Architecture for Wide-Area Environment Observation

Environment observation has significant progress with the development of information and communication technology in the past 20 years. In this manuscript, we propose an architecture for wide-area environment observation, called CIRCLE, which includes five components: location tracker, terrestrial fixed type unit, terrestrial movable type unit, aerial unit, and water unit. We concern four aspects for an application-oriented cooperation mechanism: synchronization, location estimation, sensing/status data transmission, and cooperation standardization. We also discuss water observation system using underwater vehicle and terrestrial network, called WALRUS. We set up real-world system and perform series of experiments using underwater vehicle, environment sensor, data collector, and cellular and capillary communication technologies.