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
“Green” has become a marketing buzzword. Attach to all products if at all justifiable, ’cause it makes people feel good.
Sheesh.
As others have hinted, its not the “green” aspect of reducing energy use that’s as important as the fact that many of these remote sensors are just that -remote. Which often means running on solar and/or battery power. The longer the batteries will last, the less often someone has to trek out to do maintenance, and the cheaper the overall cost. That should be a good enough selling point right there.
I’m not taking issue with improving the efficiency of the sensors.
My main beef is with the part about folding in predictive algorithms into the data collection centers, and the consequences, both inadvertent and intentional, that brings.
I would appreciate a quick ‘case study’, an example, of such a network (including the types of sensors, how often they would be sampled, etc).
Otherwise, I envision this as just so much “vaporware” (and a ploy to obtain grant money, which I think is the REAL objective.)
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Sorry, but why is energy efficiency a bad thing?
Re – iPod chargers they do add up. How many million have been sold?
I’m not sure if this “smart” software will be useful in life threatening situations. It has been revealed here in Australia that during the flash flooding in QLD’s Lockyer Valley last January, the reading on one automatic river level guage leapt from almost nothing to 8 metres, then failed. The operators in the control room did not believe the reading because it rose too fast. As it turned out, the guage failed when it was flooded, & people downstream died. What they really needed was a person to look out a window near the river to confirm what the instruments were saying, but there was no such backup system in place. Nowadays, cost-cutting is the priority, so head-office boffins make decisions without the benefit of any local knowledge, often resulting in a greater cost to the community.
@RSweeney says:
June 29, 2011 at 11:09 am
“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.”
Yes that is true and very sound, however, these knobs are using the same old system but are going energy efficient by new and approved software, not by using better more efficient hardware.
Most worrying would be sensors that go into sleep mode, only to awaken just in time to be destroyed by that which they almost warned about.
How about a trip-stick on a volcano? If the lava hits the stick, it flips a switch that kicks the sensor out of sleep mode…milliseconds before a small puff of smoke replaces the sensor which reads: “Now loading network application, please wait”.