From Eurekalert, this inanity. What next, calls to reduce the beam power of NEXRAD weather radar systems so they are more “green”? I’m all for power efficiency in remote sensing, but leave it at that. Calling it “green” just sounds ridiculous in the headline context. – Anthony
Greener disaster alerts
Low-energy wireless sensor networks warn of hurricanes, earthquakes
New software allows wireless sensor networks to run at much lower energy, according to researchers writing in the International Journal of Sensor Networks. The technology could improve efficiency for hurricane and other natural disaster warning systems.
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are used to monitor ecosystems, wild and urban environments. They have been vital in predicting events that threaten species and environments, including gathering information from animal habitats, in volcanic activity monitoring, flash-flood alerts and environmental monitoring. Wireless sensing in densely populated urban communities can be invaluable not only in monitoring the physical environment, but also for focusing on the impact people and their vehicles have on that environment through mobile emissions monitoring. Such sensing allows consideration to be given to such factors in planning for sustainable development. Unfortunately, the benefits of WSNs come at a price – they require energy.
Computer scientist Patricia Morreale of Kean University in Union, New Jersey and colleagues Feng Qi and Paul Croft of Kean’s School of Environmental and Life Sciences, explain how a mesh network of wireless sensors reports data to a central site for environmental monitoring and risk identification. They have developed such a system that reduces the energy requirements compared to conventional WSNs.
The new approach to WSNs is, they say, considered green because of the reduced energy demands in use and by the overall network as well as its actual application. It is designed so that environmental information can be obtained and communicated through periodic updates rather than the usual “timestamp synchronization” approach of conventional WSNs. “This reduces the amount of communication required between network nodes, resulting in an overall energy saving, while not compromising the nature of the data gathered,” the team says. “The sensor network applications provide an outstanding representation of green networking as sparse but sufficient environmental monitoring, accompanied by real-time data analysis, and historical pattern identification permits risk identification in support of public safety and protection.”
The software underpinning the new approach can monitor and check incoming sensor data against an existing database and produce charts predicting the sensors’ next most likely reading. The team explains that by implementing a system that monitors and distinguishes between normal sensor variations and underlying patterns it can be used to generate real-time alarms, the moment a pattern or new event emerged. This is critical in early warnings of potentially catastrophic and fast-moving natural disasters, the team says.
The GWSN – green-WSN – can, at the moment, only predict the next reading based on past values. The team is now working to optimize the software to allow it to estimate future readings for any date and time.
“A green wireless sensor network for environmental monitoring and risk identification” in Int. J. Sensor Networks, 2011, 10, 73-82
Some radio networks require a given amount of energy to sustain the system in all conditions. Whilst they may work at low energy levels on a good day will they on the worst day. Probably not. If the network is part of a warning system then they must work 24/7 in all conditions.
Enough said.
How can I put this? What has happened, in the last 30 or so years, since political correctness has taken hold, is that – well, the lunatics have taken over the asylum.
the fact that they left out any numbers, before/after, tells me that the energy savings are tiny and most likely not worth the added expense.
“Low-energy wireless sensor networks warn of hurricanes, earthquakes”
So we’re going backwards in technology? In the good ol’ days they had wireless sensor networks to warn of disaster; they called them “people,” and those people hollered out the window to the next farm over to duck and cover.
We’ve steadily improved on that original system and the improvements came with a corresponding increase in energy use. For my money, I’d like to see continued improvement in detection and warning systems and energy considerations can be wa-a-a-a-y down the list after all else is taken care of, but that’s just me.
Detection and warning systems are very good nowadays but emergency response needs a lot of work. Just look at any recent evacuation operation and the corrresponding parking-lot of cars on the roads out of the affected areas and you’ll get my drift.
All of the energy savings in mW of improvements to detectors goes up in the smoke of just a few cars idling for hours as they wait to evacuate an area.
So, essentially, the first time they fail with their new and approved green system they’re really gonna get embarrassed to the point of trying to hide it, and in the end blaming it on a software bug. The software is just great though, but . . . new and green and use 0.005% less energy or something.
Cretins, your techno-savy is puny:
The ultimate in energy saving technology is thus: given that AGW is an Utterly True Fact For All Of Eternity, measurements no longer need to be taken; the computer-driven models can provide all the data required.
Simple, really. And so very Green, in so many ways.
Sometimes I have low energy also, feeling kinda sad, kinda depressed. We used to call that “the blues” but now I guess we should call it the “greens”.
With apologies to the Stones,
“As I stand by your flame, I get burned once again, feelin’ low down, I’m green…”
“The team is now working to optimize the software to allow it to estimate future readings for any date and time.”
Call me paranoid, but this worries me.
Trying to be generous. Reading between the lines, it sounds like the sensors only transmitt data when something has changed, or when the recorded change passes a pre-set threshold. That’s one way to minimize activity and prolong battery life. If it’s still 90 degrees, no need to send an update.
The problem is of course, if there is no set schedule for updates, how do you know if you have missed a transmission. It’s possible that the predictive part of this is so that the controller can make good guesses about when a new message will be sent from a sensor and be on the look out for it.
These people probably turn off their smoke alarms at night to save batteries.
Robert Wille:
“I’ll bet these new gadgets reduce power consumption by about .000000001%.”
Having read the article on ‘significant digits’ (Numerology) I was wondering if you trust the power saving claims from Appel (etc) to that number of significant digits! 🙂
Regards
Crispin
All done in the name of The Water, The Sun and The Holy Sphereic.
Cod Bless their little hearts.
I’m surprised at all the negativism expressed here. Well, all the references to green this and that is a problem, and I suppose all of you live where it doesn’t get dark aren’t familiar with places where it does get dark and don’t understand some of the issues with monitoring stuff in the middle of nowhere.
I really appreciate my Davis weather stations (bought before WUWT, but available at http://weathershop.com ). One is at our yurt on the side of Mt Cardigan in New Hampshire. No electricity or phone. The outside remote sensors have a solar cell and supercaps for energy storage, and a 123 battery that runs just fine when supercaps die. The base station runs on a few C cells for months. Compared to all the other computers I’ve worked with, I find it all as amazing current data storage density.
Davis has stuff to relay data between base stations and cell phone interfaces too. (Cell phone coverage at the yurt is marginal.)
Something like this sensor network could be very good for densely covering smallish areas. I suppose it could grow into a wide area array without much trouble. It seems it would be better for monitoring volcanoes and fault lines than hurricanes, but if you were studying micro scale events along with non-hurricane data it could be quite handy.
Such sensing allows consideration to be given to such factors in planning for sustainable development.
But within these Holy transformative efforts towards establishing
Social Justicejust who is the most “sensitive” of individuals on the Planet [me], I rise so that the least amongst us is not forgotten and to therefore ask The Most Basic Question, “But who will feed the bedbugs?”Wireless Sensor Alert: I’m hungry. Feed me and you feed the bedbugs! Or else!
Link to paper, at least the abstract is free. Paywall price for paper is 30 Euros. See the Table of Contents for that issue of the journal. Energy efficient, power efficient, green, renewable energy sources… And something about wireless network security.
So instead of the current paradigm of taking readings at regular intervals, they only check the sensors when the system thinks there may be a change?
Why not just make wireless sensors that phone home when there is a change, and otherwise respond to a timeout-based “Still alive?” request with the current reading? Now there could be some real energy savings!
The software underpinning the new approach can monitor and check incoming sensor data against an existing database and produce charts predicting the sensors’ next most likely reading
————————————————–
So how do we know what the real data is if the program is just predicting the next sensor reading. This appears to be an updated version of hide the decline..
it’s gang.green
amputation might have helped, but now it’s too late.
I would imagine the real importance of low power consumption for sensors sitting off the grid, where getting enough annual power from wind/solar might be a challenge. But it doesn’t sound on the face of it to be much of a real improvement. If you can control the power of the transmitter, you can have it essentially shut off its transmitter when it’s not sending data to its hub. That’s already being done when available (not all hardware lets you do this.)
Secondly unless your sensor/digitizing system was already ulltralow power, you probably are talking about 25% or less of the total power budget for the device (this is based on most sensors requiring at least 3.5 watts, once you include the sensor+preamp (0.5 W), digitizing hardware (0.5W), central computer (>1W), wireless amplifier (1W) and GPS receiver( 0.5 W). Not trivial but not “vastly greener” either, and anyway the software already exists to do this only linux based computers…the trouble you run into is when the wireless amplifier itself (driving the wireless antenna) contains no method for power reduction. (Yes I know there is a WIFI txpower parameter for wireless devices in Linux…this isn’t always supported by the driver or the hardware.)
Finally if the device (like many of them) is off the grid, isn’t it “green” by definition?
But haven’t wireless networks been conclusively linked to the disappearance of honey bees? How is killing the bees considered green?
“The team is now working to optimize the software to allow it to estimate future readings for any date and time.”
I’m sorry, I know this was a single sentence on a tangent to the main report’s subject. And my inner skeptic says, that’s exactly why it was put there, so as to be dismissed and ignored.
ONLY GOOD THINGS CAN COME when the “models” and the “actual readings” become commingled and inseparable in the raw data…
Can of worms to include:
– Will “outlier” readings that don’t follow the predictions be flagged for review? Dismissed as bad data and averaged / replaced by the predicted value?
– Will missed sensor updates be actually recorded as blanks? Or will they be filled in with predicted values? Will a substituion of predicted value instead of actual reading be noted in the raw data?
– Drawing on the previous point, if predicted values are simply used to fill in the gaps in sensor inputs, how many in a row would need to happen before the sensor was flagged as non-responsive and possibly needing a visit for maintenance / inspection? I can easily imagine sensors going down and no one noticing for months / years because there was no tell-tale string of non-responses in the raw data stream, as predictive values simply chugged along instead.
When real-world sensor data tarnishes the reputation of computer models as ClimateGate did, the obvious solution to some people is to inject modelling directly into the raw data stream.
Isn’t it funny…..To think that when a major disaster happens somewhere in the world, the U.S. does in fact send a green energy emergency facility.
A U.S. nuclear powered aircraft carrier.
We been doin’ it for years.
If anyone has 30 euros they don’t need, feel free to purchase the paper below:
http://www.inderscience.com/search/index.php?action=record&rec_id=40905&prevQuery=&ps=10&m=or
Mark Wilson, regarding your question, you’d use some form of reliable bi-directional communication protocol so your sensor knows when the data has been successfully transmitted.
E.g., if you are using TCP/IP enabled radio modems, this is taken care of automatically (at the expense of much higher power levels due to processing costs on the modem itself. These radio modems can use up to 4-W of power when transmitting.) Otherwise you set up some type of hand-shaking mechanism (and have much lower power consumption, typically around 1-W).
Eyal Porat says: “Pathetic. One thing is omitted from this press release: the numbers. I am sure that as soon as people see the numbers they will realize it is just another exercise in futility.”
The numbers will be reported in picowatts. So all right, then.
Going against the flow here, but low power sensor networks are not for green, they are for reliability, cost and longevity.
High power is inconsistent with off-grid use, or use when the grid is down. Ultra-low power mesh networks can operate for years on a lithium battery, providing wide ranging data without the need for large, expensive and fragile solar panels or expensive field trips for battery replacement.
These green goons see everything through their lens of ideology.