The Center for Embedded Network Sensing is an NSF science and technology center established in 2002 to develope embedded network sensing systems and to apply this revolutionary technology to critical scientific and social applications. Like the internet, these large-scale distributed systems, composed of smart sensors and actuators embedded in the physical world, will eventually infuse the entire world, but at a physical level instead of the virtual world.

Embedded networked sensing systems will form a critical infrastructure resource for society. They will monitor and collect information on such diverse subjects as plankton colonies, endangered species, soil and air contaminants, medical patients, and buildings, bridges and other man-made structures. Across this wide range of appicaitons, these sensing systems promise to reveal previously unobservable phenomena.

The Center for Autonomous Intelligent Networked Systems was established in 2001, with six laboratories in the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering departments of the UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Appplied Science.

The Center's mission is to serve as a forum for intelligent agent researchers and visionaries from academia, industry, and government, with an interdisciplinary focus on such fields as engineering, medicine, biology and the social sciences. Information and technology will be exchanged through symposia, seminars, short courses, and through collaboration in joint research projects sponsored by the government and industry.