Design and development of a satellite based water resources monitoring system
Date
2014-12
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Abstract
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The Faculty of Forestry and Woodscience at Stellenbosch
University has a requirement to monitor and record
water resources and environmental data at remote sites, not
within reach of any mobile services. The current solution consists
of a standalone data logger based monitoring system. This
system, however, is not ideal as it does not provide data in
real time and has high costs and other problems servicing
the particular sites. This paper presents an alternative satellite
based WSN (Wireless Sensor Network) solution to this problem.
The system described in this paper comprises a WSN with a
three-part framework. The first part consists of sensor nodes
monitoring rainfall, air temperature, air humidity, ambient light,
wind speed, wind direction, soil temperature and soil moisture.
Communication from these nodes to the central gateway is based
in the wireless ISM band. The second part contains an Iridium
satellite communications module, a gateway with a Linux based
SBC (Single Board Computer) for collecting, storing and sending
data from sensor nodes and forwarding such data via the SBD
(Short Burst Data) satellite messaging service. The third part
consists of the MS (Master Station), which is used for displaying
sensory and site information. The system is solar powered and
measurements indicate that the system meets an overall standby
time of at least three days, as stated in the project requirements.
It has been tested continuously in an actual deployment situation
and is performing well. This new satellite based monitoring
system is certainly an improvement and a reliable alternative
to the one used up to now.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Geen opsomming beskikbaar
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Geen opsomming beskikbaar
Description
Please cite as follows:
Mafukidze, H. & Wolhuter, R. 2014. Design and development of a satellite based water resources monitoring system, in Proceedings of the First International Conference on the use of Mobile Informations and Communication Technology (ICT) in Africa UMICTA 2014, 9-10 December 2014, STIAS Conference Centre, Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University, Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, South Africa, ISBN: 978-0-7972-1533-7.
The conference is available at http://mtn.sun.ac.za/conference2014/
See also the record http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/95703
Mafukidze, H. & Wolhuter, R. 2014. Design and development of a satellite based water resources monitoring system, in Proceedings of the First International Conference on the use of Mobile Informations and Communication Technology (ICT) in Africa UMICTA 2014, 9-10 December 2014, STIAS Conference Centre, Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University, Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, South Africa, ISBN: 978-0-7972-1533-7.
The conference is available at http://mtn.sun.ac.za/conference2014/
See also the record http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/95703
Keywords
Data logger, WSN (Wireless Sensor Network), Monitoring -- Water