Portuguese Experts in Conference on Sensor Networks Organized by OECD

The organization of the conference is financially supported by ANACOM – National Communications Authority and had the support of the Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) in defining themes and identifying the Portuguese participants, including researchers of the Carnegie Mellon – Portugal Program and the MIT – Portugal Program within the action “Partnerships for the Future” of the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, and of the Associate Laboratories INESC-ID - Institute of Systems and Computers Engineering - R&D, INESC-Porto - Institute of Systems and Computers Engineering - Porto and IT – Institute of Telecommunications.

The participation of Portugal in the conference, beyond its Chair by Luis Magalhães, President of UMIC and Vice Chair of the OECD Committee for Information, Computer and Communications Policy (ICCP), involves the moderation of the session devoted to "Transportation" by José Viegas, coordinator of this subject area in the MIT – Portugal Program and researcher of the CESUR – Center of Urban and Regional Systems of Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Lisbon, the moderation of the session devoted to "Public Policy" by Manuel Barros, Director of the Office of Communications Security of ANACOM and Vice Chair of the OECD ICCP Working Party on Information Security and Privacy (WPISP), and counts on the participation of Portuguese researchers in the panels of several sessions (José Luís Santos of INESC-Porto; João Barros, Director of the  Carnegie Mellon – Portugal Program and researcher at the IT– Institute of Telecommunications; Augusto Casaca of INESC-ID, A. Luís Osório of ISEL).

The general objectives of the conference are to:

• Provide a better understanding of how sensor-based networks can help address important challenges in three select areas: environmental protection, health and elderly care, transportation and logistics.
• Discuss how these technologies can contribute to growth, productivity, employment, and quality gains in these areas.
• Consider the conditions for the adoption of these technologies, including acceptance, privacy, information security, interoperability and the provision of the necessary infrastructure.

The discussion aims to explore recent developments and trends in research on sensor-based network technologies and applications with a potential for adoption in the short, medium and long-term, as well as the drivers and challenges for their deployment. It also aimed to provide a better understanding of what innovation processes and transformations occur during the development and the market introduction of sensor-based networks in a given sector.

The opening session includes welcome speeches of by representatives of ANACOM and the OECD Secretariat, with a presentation on the European Commission's policies for the Internet of Things and with assistance from the CEO of Telenor Research & Innovation, a professor at the University of Tokyo, Japan, and the OECD Secretariat.

The panel session devoted to "Health and Elderly Care", counts with the Portuguese researcher José Luís Santos of INESC-Porto and the Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto, and participants of the Institute of Photonics and Electronics, Prague, Czech Republic, Information Security Research Department, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Korea, the company Toumaz Technology Limited, United Kingdom, and the project Netcarity of the European Union (EU) AAL - Ambient Assited Living Program (see Call for Projects for Ambient Assisted Living elderly). The session is moderated by Elettra Ronchi of the OECD Secretariat and also features speakers of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Canada, and the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing of UCLA – University of California at Los Angeles, USA.

The panel session devoted to " Protection of the Environment" counts with the Portuguese researcher Director of the  Carnegie Mellon – Portugal Program, researcher at the IT– Institute of Telecommunications and professor at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, and participants from Carnegie Mellon University, USA, Beisheim School of Management, Germany, Arch Rock company based in San Francisco, California, USA. The session is moderated by Graham Vickery of the OECD Secretariat and also features speakers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration, Germany, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, ICT Center, Australia, and Honeywell, USA.

The panel session devoted to "Transportation" counts with the Portuguese researchers Augusto Casaca of INESC-ID and IST and A. Luís Osório of IST, Lisbon, and participants from  the MIT SENSEable City Laboratory, MIT, USA, and the Austria Tech, project Coopers – Co-Operative Systems for Intelligent Road Safety of the EU Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development. The session is moderated by José Viegas, Coordinator of the area of Intelligent Transportation Systems of the MIT – Portugal Program, researcher of CESUR and Professor of IST, Lisbon.

The panel session devoted to "Policy discussion" counts with the moderators of the thematic sessions and participants of the Civil Society Information Society Advisory Council and the European Digital Rights, the Data Protection Authority of Italy, the Directorate-General of Information Society and Media of the European Commission and the OECD Secretariat. The session is moderated by Manuel Barros, Director of the Office of Communications Security of ANACOM and Vice Chair of the OECD ICCP Working Party on Information Security and Privacy (WPISP).

In the concluding session of the Conference, the Chair, Luis Magalhães, President of the Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) and Vice Chair of the OECD Committee ICCP, gave a summary of key policy issues to be considered in the future and highlighted the possible role to be played by the OECD (Meeting Chair Remarks on the OECD Experts Conference).

Sensor-based networks and associated technologies hold the promise to help address important challenges such as protecting the environment including saving energy and rationalizing the consumption of natural resources, delivering health and elderly care, improving transportation safety and efficiency, or organizing response to natural disasters, increasing quality control and productivity through better monitoring of industrial and services production and distribution processes.

Sensors are fixed or mobile processing devices that measure or detect a real-world condition, such as motion, heat, light or location and convert the condition into an analogue or digital representation. "Sensor-based networks” are groups of sensors with a communications infrastructure intended to cooperatively monitor and record conditions at diverse locations.

Real-life applications using sensor-based networks are not yet widespread. Many are already implemented or being implemented. Many others are in the laboratory. Therefore we are at an ideal moment to consider the technical, economic, and social issues that applications using this technology may raise and how to foster innovation in this area.

It is expected that applications of large scale sensor-based networks have a large expansion in the coming years. A well known example in which Portugal is the clear leader in Europe is the “Via Verde”, with sensors in cars and detectors on highway tolls, fuel stations, car parks and historic neighborhoods, which is highly present in car detection for toll payment on highways (more than 60% of toll payments, more than 250 million detections of cars per year, over 2 million cars with identifiers), but also with other applications relating to the detection of cars. 

This conference of experts "Using Network-Based Sensor Driven to Global Problems: Opportunities and Challenges in Policy" is held in Lisbon following the 2008 OECD Ministerial Meeting on the Future of the Internet Economy (news in Portuguese), on 17-18 June 2008, where Ministers invited the OECD to "analyse the economic, social and cultural impacts of emerging Internet technologies, applications and services, including sensor-based networks" (Seoul Declaration). It builds on previous OECD work on RFID and on the High Level OECD Conference on "ICTs, the environment and Climate change" (Helsingør, Denmark, 27-28 May 2009), in which Portugal participated by Paulo Ferrão, Director of the MIT – Portugal Program, who spoke on ICT innovation for sustainable urban infrastructures in the session "Clean Technologies for a Greener Urban Growth." 

Sensor networks have been specially considered in Portugal research agenda, in particular in several of the programs included in the action “Partnerships for the Future” of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, particularly in the Carnegie Mellon – Portugal Program, MIT – Portugal Program (particularly in the components of energy systems and production systems for monitoring the health status of people), the Fraunhofer – Portugal Program with the creation of the Fraunhofer Portugal research center AICOS – Assistive Information and Communication Solutions, and Portugal participation in the European programme on AAL – Ambient Assisted Living. 

As part of the continuing interest of Portugal on Future Internet, and in particular on the Internet of Things and RFID, under the Portuguese Presidency of the European Union it was organized in the Lisbon area the Conference and Exhibition "On RFID - The next step to THE INTERNET OF THINGS" (news in Portuguese) following the conference "RFID: Towards the Internet of Things" (news in Portuguese) held in Berlin on 25-26 June 2007, under the German Presidency of the European Union, which had as its background paper publication European Policy Outlook RFID. In the EU Council which met on November 23, 2007 in Brussels, in the formation of Competitiveness dedicated to research, the Portuguese Presidency presented a written information on the Internet of Things and RFID (On RFID – The next step to The Internet of Things).