Patent ID: 7430186

Claim:
A sensor network comprising: a plurality of sensors and a plurality of actuators, each said plurality of sensors and plurality of actuators associated with a known spatial location within a spatially-bounded region; a database for storing said spatial location information of each said plurality of sensors and plurality of actuators within said spatially-bounded region; a spatial-processor means for receiving sensor device readings and associated time stamps, said spatial-processor means implementing a rules engine for calculating one or more context zones based upon said location information contained in the location database and said sensor device readings and associated time stamps provided to said spatial-processor from said plurality of sensors to provide actuator coverage for said spatially-bounded region, said spatial processor assigning sensors as physical boundaries defining each one or more context zones; said rules engine determining if each said one or more context zones has said actuator coverage by determining whether an actuators is deployed to each said context zone, said context zone having an associated subset of said plurality of sensors as a spatial boundary and a subset of said plurality of actuators; and a context zone intersect detector for determining if the boundaries of each said plurality of context zones intersect or overlap, wherein, if one said plurality of actuators in said one or more said plurality of context zones is determined non-operational or unassigned to the zone, said spatial-processor redeploying one or more actuators from another intersecting or overlapping context zone to the context zone containing the non-operational actuator.