A low cost wireless sensor network for water quality monitoring in natural water bodies

• Published in: 2017 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC) pp. 1 - 8
• Main Authors: Menon, Gayathri S., Ramesh, Maneesha Vinodini, Divya, P.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.10.2017
• Subjects: Low cost; Monitoring; Quality Monitoring; Real-time systems; Rivers; Sensors; Water pollution; Water Quality; Water resources; Wireless sensor networks; WSN
• DOI: 10.1109/GHTC.2017.8239341

Water is one of the precious factors in human life. It plays a vital role in the survival and existence of flora and fauna. But, now a days it is been exploited heavily by dumping of human waste, industrial and chemical waste in to the water bodies which is the resultant of water being contaminated with toxic chemicals. Water scarcity and water contamination has been one of the major issues faced by the society around the world. In many developing countries like India, the main focus is given to industrialization and urbanization. But this has caused an increased water usage and water contamination. This paper deals with the monitoring of water quality by mainly considering the physical and chemical properties of water. For this purpose, a Wireless Sensor node is designed which will contain several sensors to sense the chemical contents of water. The highlight of sensor node is that it is water proof. The main components of WSN include microcontroller for processing the system, communication system for inter and intra node communication and several sensors. The power for the sensor nodes are obtained from the solar panels connected to the sensor nodes. Though, in earlier times, there were water quality monitoring systems, they were power hungry and not real time. Apart from acting as a single system, if this system integrates with other innovative solutions like Smart Home or Smart Building, the application of this system would increase leading to an increased demand for it. This paper highlights on how a real time monitoring system can be made generic, using Network Virtualization. Also, new technologies like Internet of Things (IoT) could be incorporated in this system to make it advanced.