HydroNode: An Underwater Sensor Node Prototype of r

HydroNode: An Underwater Sensor Node Prototype forMonitoring Hydroelectric Reservoirs

Luiz F. M. VieiraUniversidade Federal de

Minas GeraisBelo Horizonte, MG, Brazillfvieira@dcc.ufmg.br

David PintoUniversidade Federal de

Minas GeraisBelo Horizonte, MG, Brazil

davidem1990@ufmg.br

Sadraque S. VianaUniversidade Federal de

Minas GeraisBelo Horizonte, MG, Brazil

drachum@ufmg.brMarcos A. M. VieiraUniversidade Federal de

Minas GeraisBelo Horizonte, MG, Brazilmmvieira@dcc.ufmg.br

José Augusto M. NacifUniversidade Federal de

ViçosaFlorestal, MG, Brazil

jnacif@ufv.br

Alex B. VieiraUniversidade Federal de Juiz

de ForaJuiz de Fora, MG, Brazil

alex.borges@ufjf.edu.br

ABSTRACTThe research of underwater sensor networks (UWSNs) isgaining attention due to its possible applications in manyscenarios, such as ecosystem preservation, disaster preven-tion, oil and gas exploration and freshwater reservoirs man-agement. The main elements of a UWSN are underwatersensor nodes (UWNs). In this paper we present HydroNode,an underwater sensor node prototype for monitoring hydro-electric reservoirs . The objective of this paper is to describethe design of HydroNode for Hydroelectric Reservoirs Mon-itoring. We only used commercial off-the-shelf componentsto build our underwater sensor node. Due to its multipur-pose design, HydroNode can be used in different UWSNs,therefore aiding the research of UWSN system protocols,configurations and applications.

Categories and Subject DescriptorsC.2.1 [Computer Communication Networks]: [NetworkArchitecture and Design.]

General TermsDesign

KeywordsUnderwater sensor networks, underwater sensor node, hy-droelectric, reservoirs, monitoring

1. INTRODUCTIONUnderwater sensor networks (UWSNs) is an important re-

search area that is attracting increasing interest both fromthe research community and also from the industry [2, 1].

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Oceans, rivers and lakes are critical to the life on our planetand monitoring these environments is a hard and costly task.Thus, there is a large number of applications where UWSNsare important, such as ecosystem preservation, disaster pre-vention, oil/gas exploration, and freshwater reservoirs man-agement [6, 7]. Recent experimental work in underwaternetworking includes [3].

An underwater sensor network is formed by many au-tonomous sensor nodes. An underwater sensor node (UWN)can sense the environment, collect data, as well route datain the network. One of the main challenges of deployingsuch a network is the sensor node development, includingits high cost when compared to terrestrial sensor nodes [5].Most hardware architectures of sensor network nodes aimedat very specific applications, lacking in generality, and re-searchers lacked a unified platform to test practical perfor-mance of network protocols.

Nowadays hydroelectric reservoirs monitoring are very im-portant. The water reservoirs, besides being used for pro-ducing energy, contain large stores of formerly terrestrialorganic carbon. In addition, significant amounts of green-house gases are emitted, especially in the early years follow-ing reservoir creation.

The objective of this paper is to describe the design ofHydroNode for Hydroelectric Reservoirs Monitoring. Weused only commercial off-the-shelf components to build ourunderwater sensor node. Due to its multipurpose design,HydroNode can be used in different UWSNs, therefore aid-ing the research of UWSN system protocols, configurationsand applications.

2. UNDERWATER SENSOR NODEThe underwater sensor node architecture and components

is shown in Figure 1. There are up to 7 sensor that canconnect to the acquisition board, which is responsible forreading the sensors values at a predetermined time inter-vals. Reading time intervals can be configured according toscientists interest and also consider the energy left on thebatteries. Those sensed values are transmitted internally tothe manager board, which, in turn, can send those to an out-side computer, to a micro SD card (via data logger board)or can send it to the modem board. The modem board will

transmit or receive the data wirelessly via the acoustic mo-dem. Any acoustic modem with serial ports can be used.Once data are received by another underwater sensor nodeor an outside computer, they can be stored and processedby any data management software, such as databases andweb servers.

Sensores

Software

MicroMicroSDSD

++

++

Datalogger Board Manager Board

Modem Board

Acquisition Board

Configuração Interna da Sonda

Configuração Interna da Sonda

I²C

RS232

RS232

RS232 I²C

RS232

Modem Acústico

HydroNodeSonda

Figure 1: HydroNode components.

The node is built to carry heterogeneous sensors, allowinga more complete view of the environment. The outside viewof the underwater sensor node is shown in Figure 2. Theinside view is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 2: Outside view

Figure 3: Inside view

Table 1 describe the current sensors used in HydroNode.We plan to increase the number of sensors used, while main-taining a low power consumption. Temperature, dissolvedoxygen, ph, Chlorophyll, electric conductivity and turbidity

are all measurements important for biologist and oceanog-raphers. With those values, they can study how the envi-ronment is proper for marine biology development and re-late green gas emission with hydroelectric reservoirs. Thecurrent acoustic modem is the SAM-1 miniature acousticmodem from Desert Star 1.

Table 1: Water quality sensors

Sensor Model Manufacturer

Temperature WQ101 Global Water

Dissolved Oxygen WQ401 Global Water

PH WQ201 Global Water

Chlorophyll 6025 YSI

Conductivity WQ-Cond Global Water

Turbidity WQ730 Global Water

3. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORKIn this paper, we presented HydroNode, an underwater

sensor node for hydroelectric reservoirs monitoring.Future work are related to improving HydroNode’s cost

and energy efficiency, as well as the development of the net-work layers, new UWSNs protocols and applications. It in-cludes the development of MAC, routing [4, 8] and transportprotocols, considering duty cycle and battery managementimprovements.

4. ADDITIONAL AUTHORSAntonio O. Fernandes (email: otavio@dcc.ufmg.br).

5. REFERENCES[1] J. Heidemann, W. Ye, J. Wills, A. Syed, and Y. Li.

Research challenges and applications for underwatersensor networking. In In Proceedings of the IEEEWCNC, pages 228–235, 2006.

[2] J. Kong, J. Cui, D. Wu, and M. Gerla. Buildingunderwater ad-hoc networks and sensor networks forlarge scale real-time aquatic applications. In InProceedings of IEEE MILCOM, pages 1535–1541, 2005.

[3] H. Kulhandjian, L. Kuo, T. Melodia, D. Pados, andD. Green. Towards experimental evaluation ofsoftware-defined underwater networked systems. InIEEE UComms, 2012.

[4] U. Lee, P. Wang, Y. Noh, L. F. M. Vieira, M. Gerla,and J.-H. Cui. Pressure routing for underwater sensornetworks. In INFOCOM, pages 1676–1684, 2010.

[5] J. Partan, J. Kurose, and B. N. Levine. A survey ofpractical issues in underwater networks. In In Proc.ACM WUWNet, pages 17–24, 2006.

[6] L. F. M. Vieira. Underwater SEA Swarm. Phd incomputer science, University of California Los Angeles,2009.

[7] L. F. M. Vieira. Mobile ad hoc networks: Currentstatus and future trends. In 15 - Underwater SensorNetworks. CRC Press, 2011.

[8] L. F. M. Vieira, U. Lee, and M. Gerla. Phero-trail: abio-inspired location service for mobile underwatersensor networks. IEEE JSAC, 28(4):553–563, 2010.

1http://www.desertstar.com