Multi-modal sensor networks for more effective sensing in Irish coastal and freshwater environments

Abstract

Abstract-The world's oceans represent a vital resource to global economies and there exists huge economic opportunity that remains unexploited. However along with this huge potential there rests a responsibility into understanding the effects various developments may have on our natural ecosystem. This along with a variety of other issues necessitates a need for continuous and reliable monitoring of the marine and freshwater environment. The potential for innovative technology development for marine and freshwater monitoring and knowledge generation is huge and recent years have seen huge leaps forward in relation to the development of sensor technology for such purposes. However despite the advancements there are still a number of issues. In our research we advocate a multi-modal approach to create smarter more efficient monitoring networks, while enhancing the use of in-situ wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In particular we focus on the use of visual sensors, modelled outputs and context information to support a conventional in-situ wireless sensor network creating a multi-modal environmental monitoring network. Here we provide an overview of a selection of our work in relation to the use of visual sensing through networked cameras or satellite imagers in three very diverse test sites -a river catchment, a busy port and a coastal environment.

Applications of Wireless Sensor Networks in Marine Environment Monitoring: A Survey

“…It can be found that most of the efforts are related to general ocean sensing and monitoring [ 4 , 23 , 40 , 44 , 46 , 47 , 50 , 53 , 55 – 57 ] and water quality monitoring [ 39 , 42 , 43 , 49 , 51 , 54 , 58 ]. Some specific efforts have been made for fish farm monitoring [ 45 , 48 ], coral reef monitoring [ 41 ], and marine shellfish monitoring [ 52 ].…”

Water Quality Monitoring Using Wireless Sensor Networks

“…There have been several implementations of WSN-based WQM systems that have been tested or deployed in Australia [Silva et al 2011;Rao et al 2013], China [Jiang et al 2009;Jin et al 2010 [Wiranto et al 2015], Ireland [O'Flyrm et al 2007;Regan et al 2009;O'Connor et al 2012;Garcia et al 2012;Murphy et al 2015], Malawi [Zennaro et al 2009], Malaysia [Rasin and Abdullah 2009], Mexico [Curiel et al 2016], Peru [Ritter et al 2014], Portugal [Postolache et al 2014], Tanzania [Faustine et al 2014], Turkey [Tuna et al 2014], and the United States [Yang et al 2002;Seders et al 2007;Burke and Allenby 2014;Sun et al 2016]. Details of these systems are summarized in Tables VIII and IX. In addition to these implementations, researchers in China [Yang and Pan 2010;Chen et al 2011], India [Verma and Prachi 2012], the kingdom of Saudi Arabia [Aleisa 2013], and Zambia [Chaamwe 2010] describe the limitations of the current WQM practice adopted in their region, and they propose the idea and present the benefit of automating WQM through the adoption of WSN technologies.…”

“…These different implementations agree on a general WSN-based WQM framework, which includes the use of WSNs, a local monitoring station (or BS), and a remote monitoring station, as described is Section 5.1. However, most of the existing solutions only focus on the design and implementation of the local monitoring network (i.e., a WSN and local monitoring station), either through laboratory feasibility testing [Chaamwe 2010;Wang et al 2011;Chen et al 2011] or field deployment [Seders et al 2007; O'Flyrm et al 2007;Sun et al 2016], and some of the references actually include the final interconnection with the remote monitoring station [Yang and Pan 2010;Silva et al 2011;Alkandari et al 2011;O'Connor et al 2012;Faustine et al 2014]. Several works provide automated warning signals displayed on computer screens or communicated to decision makers via text or email.…”

“…Nevertheless, some implementations rely on underwater acoustic communications [Yang et al 2002] or WiFi [Rapousis et al 2015], or consider direct connection between each individual sensor and the remote monitoring station through GSM/GPRS communications [Zhou et al 2012a;Hadjimitsis et al 2009;Rao et al 2013]. Reporting the acquired data from the local to the remote monitoring station is done through cellular communications, either using GPRS [Hadjimitsis et al 2009;Jiang et al 2009;Wang et al 2011;Garcia et al 2012;Capella et al 2013;Faustine et al 2014;Sun et al 2016], 3G [Alkandari et al 2011;O'Connor et al 2012], or 4G [Rao et al 2013]. Additional details about the communication technologies used by the different implementations are provided in Section 5.2.…”

HYRMA: A hybrid routing protocol for monitoring of marine environments

“…Entre los retos que mencionan se tienen un mejor nivel de resistencia al agua; generar nodos más robustos debido a lo agresivo del entorno marino; el más alto consumo de energía debido a las grandes distancias de cobertura y su alta movilidad causado por las corrientes marinas, además de que los nodos se enfrentan al problema de líneas de vista más inestables. Otros trabajos han enfocado su esfuerzo en el monitoreo de los océanos en general [16][17] y el monitoreo de la calidad del agua [18][19]. Otros se han dirigido al monitoreo de granjas de peces [20] así como el monitoreo de arrecifes de coral [21] y el monitoreo de tortugas marinas [22].…”