Environmental Monitoring Using Sensor Networks(Texas Environmental Observatory)

Jue Yang, Chengyang Zhang, Xinrong Li, Yan Huang, Shengli Fu, and Miguel Acevedo

NSF CI-TEAM Grant 0636421NSF CRI Grant CNS0709285EEC-0431818Texas ARP 003594-0010-2006

December 17th, 2008 AGU Fall Meeting IN-34A

Background Motivation

• Improve our scientific understanding• Inform the public of their environmental conditions• Forecast and predict• Engaging local governments and teachers• Interdisciplinary research and education

Goal• Providing near real-time information on environmental

conditions • Data readily available to the public and amenable to

modeling, analysis and synthesis

Collaborations UNT

College of Engineering• EE

Wireless sensor networks• CSCE

Ecoinformatics• BEE

Ecosystems College of Arts and Sciences

• Environmental Science & Geography UV, Ozone, Water quality, Ecoplex Weather station , biocomplexity

• Elm Fork Ed Center and LLELA Lessons, education, outreach

• Computer Support Web server, data collection server

Computing and IT Center• Research support

Clusters Infrastructure for Database

PARTNERS City of Denton

• Weather• Flood gates• Water quality

Texas Parks and Wildlife• Greenbelt Corridor

Other cities National Park Service (Big Thicket)

TEO Paradigm

Modeling

Inform

Forecast and predict

Monitoring

Environment Public

Environmental ObservatoryEESAT

Lewisville Lake

Greenbelt Park

Discovery Park

Design Requirements Soil moisture monitoring with flexible spatial coverage and

resolution Seamlessly integrated wired and wireless sensors Long-term autonomous remote near-real-time monitoring Publicly available web services for sensor data visualization

and dissemination Remote system monitoring and maintenance

System Archtecture

System Components

TEO Online (Web Server)

Postegre SQL

GBC Wireless Modem

CDC Server

GPRS

DB Server

DB Feeder

RFG Server

PPP Link

BS

Wireless Sensor Nodes

RS-232Datalogger

System Components

TEO Online (Web Server)

Postegre SQL

Nano Station

CDC Server

DB Server

DB Feeder

RFG Server

BS

Wireless Sensor Nodes

RS-232Datalogger

Ethernet

Ethernet

WiFi

Wireless Sensor Network The WSN hardware platform employed in our current design is

the MICAz mote from Crossbow• 8MHz micro-controller• 4KB RAM, 512KB Flash• MDA300 Data Acquisition Board

12-bit AD• EC-5 Soil Moisture Sensors • IEEE 802.15.4 compliant CC2420 Transceiver 2.4 GHz,, 250 kbps

Adjustable transmission power from -25dBm to 0dBm LOS outdoor transmission range 100 meters

Wireless Sensor Network MICAz motes are powered by solar

cells and rechargeable batteries. To survive extreme weather

conditions, motes are packaged in weatherproof boxes and the boxes are installed 4 feet above the ground on top of metal poles to avoid flooding water and prevent fallen leaves from covering solar cells.

WSN Topology

TEO Online(http://www.teo.unt.edu)

TEO Online(http://www.teo.unt.edu)

Sensor Data Visualization and Dissemination

Conclusion and Future Work A remote near-real-time environmental monitoring system

that is successfully developed and deployed to support long-term environmental studies.

Seamless Integration of the emerging WSN-based system and the legacy wired sensor system.

Scaling-up the soil moisture monitoring WSN at the GBC site to around 100 motes to have a much larger geographic coverage than the current eight-mote deployment.

More observatory sites will be upgraded with the proposed architecture.

Acknowledgements This research is supported in part by NSF under Grants OCI-0636421, CNS-

0709285, and EEC-0431818, and by Texas Advanced Research Program under Grant 003594-0010-2006.

The authors would like to thank David Hunter (City of Denton), Sonny Solis (Texas Parks and Wildlife), Bob Carle (National Weather Service), and members of the TEO Research Group at UNT, especially Rudi Thompson (Biology), Duane Gustavus (CITC), Adam Skelton (EE MS student), Sanjaya Gurung (EE MS student), and Liping Chen (Applied Geography MS student) for their contributions to the development of the TEO system.

Questions?

December 17th, 2008 AGU Fall Meeting IN-34A