Sensor network takes to sea
Buoy-based technology is developed to monitor environmental changes
BT has developed a system of remote sensor networks based in buoys to survey coastal erosion and which could help to predict floods and tsunamis.
The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is backing the project, which is intended to improve the way the Environment Agency (EA) and other bodies monitor environmental changes.
The self-organising collegiate sensor (Secoas) network technology combines low-level artificial intelligence, electronic sensors and wireless radio. Networked buoys decide when and how to transmit the data they compile.
The project is part of the DTI’s Next Wave Technologies programme, which provides funding to businesses to research up-and-coming innovations.
The Secoas technology has so far been tested at the Scroby Sands offshore wind farm near Great Yarmouth to monitor seabed conditions.
BT Secoas senior researcher Jane Tateson says the buoy networks are self-managing, and durable enough to work in tough conditions.
‘We have created a resource-constrained system capable of real-time adaptation to the data it is getting from the natural environment,’ she said.
‘The buoys are also capable of assessing the transmission bandwidth available and sorting out what data to send.’
Individual buoys can transmit at up to 1km apart using low-powered VHF radio, making the networks almost unlimited in potential scale, says Tateson.
‘They can control their own battery power, and can process data and compress it to take account of the bandwidth available to relay it,’ she said.
‘They can be deployed by a non-technical person and left to derive information from a complex environment.’
Tateson says the Secoas buoys can potentially stay in place for up to a year.
But a spokeswoman for the EA’s storm tide forecast service says Secoas has yet to prove durable enough for long-term monitoring requirements.
‘We would have to be convinced that it is capable of operating in the field for upwards of 10 years,’ she said.
‘But we think it is promising because it is relatively cheap and has wide coverage for looking at areas such as coastal sediment movement and climate change.’
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