World Water Day 2007: CSIRO wireless sensor networks prove their reliability

On World Water Day, 21 March 2007, a solar-powered wireless sensor network had its second birthday at the CSIRO ICT Centre in Brisbane, maintaining its position as the longest running ad hoc wireless sensor network in Australia.

Wireless sensor networks are a key technology for a new generation of environmental monitoring and management systems and this pilot network is a test bed and reliability demonstrator for CSIRO's Fleck sensor technology.

CSIRO Science Leader for Sensor Networks, Dr Peter Corke says that, having proved the reliability of the sensor technology, CSIRO is now deploying operational networks that do real work.

"At the same time as we reach this important milestone, a CSIRO wireless sensor network is being deployed in Queensland's Burdekin Irrigation Area to monitor salinity," Dr Corke says.

"This network will advise local sugar cane farmers of the point at which water becomes too saline to use for irrigation, thus saving water, time, money and crops.

"We've been working in this area for nearly five years and have engineered our own sensor, the Fleck module, because there was nothing available that met our requirements for low power usage, low-cost, reliable communications, robustness, small size and flexible architecture."

One of the major areas of application for sensor networks is the monitoring and management of scarce water resources. As part of the Water for a Healthy Country National Research Flagship Program, CSIRO is developing the Water Resources Observation Network (WRON).

"The team at CSIRO has customised Flecks to undertake a broad range of monitoring tasks. For significant sensor implementations such as the WRON, reliability is essential," Dr Corke says.

"We have now demonstrated the reliability of our technology through two years of continuous outdoor operation in an ad hoc network in all the diverse weather conditions that can be experienced in south-east Queensland. This work is helping us solve the problems of programming and deploying much larger wireless sensor networks."

The Brisbane network measures environmental variables such as temperature, soil moisture, water quality, humidity and solar energy levels. Charged by miniature solar panels, these sensor nodes can exchange data to deliver it back to a central database for analysis.

The team at CSIRO has customised Flecks to undertake a broad range of monitoring tasks.

"Our latest innovation is multiple-sensor Flecks that include image capture and processing capabilities to allow rapid deployment of security and environmental monitoring networks," Dr Corke says.

CSIRO ICT Centre