Center for Environmental Sensing and Modeling (CENSAM)

The center for environmental sensing and modeling (CENSAM) has been established under the auspices of the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) in January 2008 with support from the Singapore National Research Foundation (NRF).

The grand challenge of censam is to provide proof of concepts in the paradigm of pervasive monitoring, modeling and control within the highly developed and carefully managed urban environment of Singapore. The long-term goal is to develop a representation of the natural and built environment that will seamlessly transition from micro-scale processes (at the level of an individual constructed facilities, 1-10km), to the meso-scale of the city-state of Singapore (10-100km) and the macrosystem of the coupled biosphere-atmosphere-ocean (at the regional scale, 100-1000km). Multiple resolution environmental models will assimilate remote sensing data from satellite and airborne platforms with ground observations from diverse sensor networks and mobile sub-marine AUV sensor platforms. The censam brings together a multidisciplinary team of MIT faculty with researchers from Singaporean academic institutions and industry.

Researchers from MIT and two Singaporean universities met on January 24-25, 2008 for an inaugural workshop to launch a bold new international research program called CENSAM. The program will develop pervasive environmental sensor networks to collect data on parameters such as air and water quality from many sources, and use this data to provide accurate, real-time monitoring, modeling and control of the environment.

One of the first goals of the research group is to provide proof of the feasibility of the concept in a carefully managed urban area like Singapore. The greater hope is that these concepts might one day be widely applied on different scales to provide up-to-the-minute data about the environment in areas as small as a building or as large as the Earth’s biosphere.

CENSAM, the Center for Environmental Sensing and Modeling, is a research component of the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology Centre (or SMART Centre), a joint project of MIT and the National Research Foundation of Singapore that was announced Jan. 23.

Professor Andrew Whittle of MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering is head of the CENSAM research group. Whittle and an initial group of about 15 MIT faculty members from civil and environmental engineering, mechanical engineering, architecture and earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences will work with researchers from the National University of Singapore, the Nanyang Technological Institute, the Singaporean Public Utilities Board, and other governmental agencies and companies.

The long-term goal of CENSAM is to develop a representation of the natural and built environment that will seamlessly transition from micro-scale processes (at the level of an individual constructed facilities, 1-10km), to the meso-scale of the city-state of Singapore (10-100km) and the macrosystem of the coupled biosphere-atmosphere-ocean (at the regional scale, 100-1000km). Multiple resolution environmental models will assimilate remote sensing data from satellite and airborne platforms with ground observations from diverse sensor networks and mobile sub-marine AUV sensor platforms. The CENSAM brings together a multidisciplinary team of MIT faculty with researchers from Singaporean academic institutions and industry.

CENSAM research will fall into five broad areas: the built and natural environment; urban hydrology and water supply; coastal environment; marine environment; and development of ways to monitor and model Singapore’s urban environment.