The Center brings together a multidisciplinary group of engineers, computer scientists, meteorologists, sociologists, graduate and undergraduate students, as well as industry and government partners to conduct fundamental research, develop enabling technology, and deploy prototype engineering systems based on a new paradigm: Distributed Collaborative Adaptive Sensing (DCAS) networks.

CASA initially operated a network of low-power, short-range, X- band, dual-polarized Doppler weather radars in southwestern Oklahoma.

The system, known as Integrative Project 1 or IP1 for short, was installed in January 2006 and began operation April 1 of 2006.

IP1 is the first CASA test bed to demonstrate DCAS and the value of low-level sensing, and a number of research opportunities will be made available by the system.

Since the construction of IP1, two new testbeds have been built and tested - one in Dallas, and one in Massachusetts.