Marine environments are delicate ecosystems which directly influence local climates, flora, fauna, and human activities. Their monitorization plays a key role in their preservation, which is most commonly done through the use of environmental sensing buoy networks. These devices transmit data by means of satellite communications or close-range base stations, which present several limitations and elevated infrastructure costs. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) are another alternative for remote environmental monitoring which provide new types of data and ease of use. These aircraft are mainly used in video capture related applications, in its various light spectrums, and do not provide the same data as sensing buoys, nor can they be used for such extended periods of time. The aim of this research is to provide a flexible, easy to deploy and cost-effective Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) for monitoring marine environments. This proposal uses a UAV as a mobile data collector, low-power long-range communications and sensing buoys as part of a single WSN. A complete description of the design, development, and implementation of the various parts of this system is presented, as well as its validation in a real-world scenario.
In smart cities and home applications, the use of Wireless Sensor Networks to extract environmental data becomes more common with the passing of time. These sensors are used for a wide array of applications, but mainly to manage energy consumption in domestic buildings. One of the key energy consumers in households is heating systems. To monitor them, sensors are used with wireless communication protocols, like ZigBee, to transmit data to a central processing unit (CPU). WiFi communications, on the contrary, are rarely seen in these implementations due to its high energy consumption, although almost in every home one can find such networks. Yet, with the Internet of Things (IoT), new revisions of the standard have arisen which enable this technology for wireless sensing. To validate this theory and fill a technological necessity, this proposal is presented. In this work, the design and implementation of an autonomous WiFi sensor, paired with thermoelectric energy harvesting, are presented as an IoT solution for monitoring heating devices. For this, a thorough analysis of the proposed architecture is presented. Tests regarding energy consumption and generation, efficiency, and real world scenario trials are done. Finalizing, a comparison between the obtained results and current implementations is shown.
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