Improvement of the Sensor Node for Wireless Sensor Network System to Monitor Natural Water Quality

Abstract

We are developing a wireless sensor network system to monitor natural water quality. Our wireless sensor network system consists of sensors for detecting water quality and systems for transferring detected data and handling power modules. Previously, we proposed a low cost buoy type sensor node to monitor lake water quality. We prototyped a single sensor node and evaluated it in the lake. However, to obtain extensive field data for large-area lake water, multiple sensor nodes are necessary. In this paper, we report the improvement results of the previous sensor node, which is performed to achieve multiple sensor nodes as elements of the wireless sensor network system. The improved sensor node has compact size and the communication system of it is optimized. We fabricated the improved sensor nodes and evaluated them in the lake. As a result, we could confirm that the wireless sensor network system consisted of improved sensor nodes was successfully functioned in real time and real environment.