A sensor system 114 senses one or more characteristics of vehicles 104,106,108 in a vehicle system 102 with sensors disposed onboard the vehicles and communicate data representative of the one or more characteristics from the sensors to one or more of a controller or a control system 116 of the vehicle system. The data communicated from the sensors onboard the same vehicle can be synchronously communicated with respect to the sensors onboard the same vehicle and asynchronously communicated with respect to the sensors disposed onboard one or more other vehicles in the vehicle system. The systems and methods can direct components disposed onboard a vehicle system to change operations, monitor data output by sensors operatively connected with the components, and determine which of the sensors are operatively connected with which of the components based on the operations of the components that are changed and the data that is output by the sensors.