This paper introduces a unifying architectural view of information retrieval in environmental monitoring applications. The architecture incorporates micro sensor nodes and mobile cluster heads into the larger context of a multi-tiered service aware ad hoc backbone network. Mobile clients, such as livings or au- tonomous robots, navigate within the area of interest, query adaptively formed sensor trees and return results to monitoring application via mobile backbone. In the paper, algorithmic solutions for service binding, query driven sensor network topology construction and end-to-end event delivery on dynamically maintained return paths are discussed. Comprehensive experimental results on the backbone topology behavior, sensing area coverage and long term reliability analysis are also given.

(under review) Kluwer Mobile Networks and Applications
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