About HPWREN

HPWREN originated as a wide-area wireless communications research project at the dawn of this millennium. Initially limited to San Diego County in support of Internet data applications in the research and education domains, it evolved over time. A substantial collaboration with first responder agencies emerged from at first very informal discussions, when those agencies assisted with HPWREN's need to deploy routers and wireless links on mountain tops.

Examples of early connections include Native American tribes via their education centers, the SDSU Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve as a biological field station, the Mount Laguna and Palomar Observatories for astronomy, the California Wolf Center as another biological observatory, as well as many earthquake and other geophysical sensors. The initial first responder agencies with which HPWREN collaborated were the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF, now CAL FIRE) via their Emergency Command Center, as well as the Regional Communications System staff at the San Diego Sheriff's Department. In retrospect, without this assistance at their mountaintop locations, it would have been unlikely that HPWREN could have expanded to the scope it is today, almost a quarter century later. Over time, collaborations also expanded to include San Diego Gas and Electric, as well as various research groups at multiple academic institutions.

In addition to the communications infrastructure system for research and education, HPWREN also provides wireless communications support for cameras and sensors, both since about 2002, often in remote areas, through a radio based wireless networking system with components that are typically off-the-shelf equipment. This wide-area network now spans San Diego County and has been extended into multiple other Southern California c ounties. With its radios often located at high elevations, many of the sites also support collocated cameras, weather stations with a high temporal resolution, and other sensors. All of the regional ANZA seismic sensors are also supported. HPWREN camera and other sensor data is openly published in near-real time at https://www.hpwren.ucsd.edu. Seismic data is available at https://doi.org/10.7914/SN/AZ. For more than a decade HPWREN has also provided Internet access to first responders in support of 60+ backcountry federal (US Forest Service), State (CAL FIRE) and San Diego County fire stations. The fire station network access and near-real time camera image availability across San Diego County provide a significant public safety component to Emergency Responders as well as the larger community.

HPWREN was initially funded by the National Science Foundation (in 2000: ANI-0087344 "An Interdisciplinary Collaboration on Performance Aspects of a High Performance Wireless Research and Education Network" and in 2004: SCI-0426879 "Integration and Analysis of Reliable Networking for Remote Science, Education, and First Responders" with an Accomplishments Based Renewal for another two years in 2009). With NSF funding ending around 2011, HPWREN became a subscriber service, and as a result self-sustaining, while operating on a cost recovery basis.

Hans-Werner Braun had been the Principal Investigator on those grants, with Co-Principal Investigator Frank Vernon. Around 2012 HPWREN became self sustaining, supported by contributions from its various stakeholders, including San Diego County, San Diego Gas and Electric, and various constituents, including major research centers such as the California Institute of Technology's Palomar Observatory and the UC San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography. In 2016 Frank Vernon stepped into the role of Project Director (and PI) when Hans-Werner Braun retired from UCSD for medical reasons, while continuing to stay involved part time.

Although the original concept was for the creation of a wireless communications research project, HPWREN early on found itself involved in discussions and activities related to public safety. In its first years, in 2003 HPWREN assisted firefighting operations by providing its first ad-hoc connection to a wildfire in San Diego County, named Coyote Fire, operations Incident Command Post (ICP). This was followed by connections to fire stations, camps, and air bases, as well as several more connections to ICPs for active fires across several years. In addition, HPWREN increased situational awareness with its real-time environment observing cameras and sensors. Some of the meteorological sensor data started being used to generate automated alerts of critical conditions, such as Santa Ana winds reaching one or more critical thresholds, to various public safety officials.

HPWREN operates as a partnership project, with access predominantly provided in rural and remote environments. In addition, HPWREN staff seek to educate its users about the underlying technologies, thereby creating a collaborative technology transfer platform in which its users can actively participate in the network's evolution to ensure it meets their own programmatic requirements.

NSF provided some financial support prior to the August 2000 award for a proof of concept effort. With the award, the prototype was to be extended as cyberinfrastructure to various research and education projects for the purpose of communications and back-hauling data, and accessing remote sensors, which then included earthquake and various other types of sensors. As the project progressed, HPWREN transitioned to receiving support from its major customers and stakeholders. In 2010, the County of San Diego provided funding to augment HPWREN's existing camera and sensor infrastructure. At that time, HPWREN already had a significant number of fire stations connected. This led to San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) supporting a substantial buildout of connectivity, cameras, and weather sensors in the San Diego County area, while also adding connectivity for as many local, state, and federal fire stations as possible. The continuation of this buildout is now directly supported by San Diego County, SDG&E, and various fire agencies. In recent years, HPWREN has significantly deepend its collaboration with UC San Diego's ALERTCalifornia public safety program.

Today, the HPWREN network supports numerous applications, ranging from the transfer of high-volume astronomical data generated by the Palomar Observatory, to a steady output of continuous low-volume traffic from devices such as earthquake sensors and meteorological stations, delivering real-time telemetry data. HPWREN includes permanent sites as well as those created temporarily and on short notice, such as firefighter base camps and Incident Command Posts (ICP). HPWREN saw use at ICPs in several of the major wildfires hitting San Diego County across many years. Many meteorological stations are deployed which give real-time fine grained space and time weather data coverage, a number of which support up-to-the-second wind data. In addition to weather data (wind direction and speed, temperature, relative humidity, and fuel moisture) some of these stations also have soil moisture and rainfall sensors. In the past, a few sites experimented with acoustic sensors to observe ocean, river, and wolf sounds. They could easily be reinstalled or adapted to new requirements, and can serve as an example of how enabling cyberinfrastructure can support new and expanded sensor networks.

The HPWREN network provides Internet access to over 60 regional fire stations and community access to both meteorological stations and 140+ cameras (color and near-infrared), often at high elevations, around Southern California. Coupled with a collection of servers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO), the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) and Calit2 (all at UCSD), and backup CENIC gateways at San Diego State University (SDSU), University of California Irvine (UCI), and Saddleback College, the larger community can access these data and image resources via reliable public web sites and other modes of interaction.

An extended summary of the HPWREN history and present can be found here

HPWREN project overview materials