A Networked Sensor System for the Analysis of Plot-Scale Hydrology.
This study presents the latest updates to the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania (ASWP) testbed, a $50,000 USD, 104-node outdoor multi-hop wireless sensor network (WSN). The network collects environmental data from over 240 sensors, including the EC-5, MPS-1 and MPS-2 soil moisture and soil water potential sensors and self-made sap flow sensors, across a heterogeneous deployment comprised of MICAz, IRIS and TelosB wireless motes. A low-cost sensor board and software driver was developed for communicating with the analog and digital sensors. Innovative techniques (e.g., balanced energy efficient routing and heterogeneous over-the-air mote reprogramming) maintained high success rates (>96%) and enabled effective software updating, throughout the large-scale heterogeneous WSN. The edaphic properties monitored by the network showed strong agreement with data logger measurements and were fitted to pedotransfer functions for estimating local soil hydraulic properties. Furthermore, sap flow measurements, scaled to tree stand transpiration, were found to be at or below potential evapotranspiration estimates. While outdoor WSNs still present numerous challenges, the ASWP testbed proves to be an effective and (relatively) low-cost environmental monitoring solution and represents a step towards developing a platform for monitoring and quantifying statistically relevant environmental parameters from large-scale network deployments.
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, 3700 O'Hara Street, 728 Benedum Engineering Hall, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA. gev5@pitt.edu.
German
G
Villalba
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, 3700 O'Hara Street, 728 Benedum Engineering Hall, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA. fjp9@pitt.edu.
Fernando
F
Plaza
Department of Computer and Information Science, Indiana University Purdue University, 723 West Michigan Street, SL 280, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA. xiaozhon@umail.iu.edu.
Xiaoyang
X
Zhong
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, 3700 O'Hara Street, 728 Benedum Engineering Hall, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA. twd34@cornell.edu.|Currently at USDA-ARS, Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture and Health, 538 Tower Road, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA. twd34@cornell.edu.
Tyler W
TW
Davis
Department of Computer and Information Science, Indiana University Purdue University, 723 West Michigan Street, SL 280, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA. mignavar@iupui.edu.
Miguel
M
Navarro
Department of Computer and Information Science, Indiana University Purdue University, 723 West Michigan Street, SL 280, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA. liyim@imail.iu.edu.
Yimei
Y
Li
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, 3700 O'Hara Street, 728 Benedum Engineering Hall, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA. tas186@pitt.edu.
Thomas A
TA
Slater
Department of Computer and Information Science, Indiana University Purdue University, 723 West Michigan Street, SL 280, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA. yaoliang@iupui.edu.
Yao
Y
Liang
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, 3700 O'Hara Street, 728 Benedum Engineering Hall, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA. xuliang@pitt.edu.
Xu
X
Liang
MPS-2 sensor; TelosB mote; environment sensors; outdoor deployment; sap flow; sensor board; soil moisture; soil water potential; wireless sensor network