Forgot your password?
Document Actions
Davies Reef Sensor Network Project Overview
This demonstrator is a QPSF funded project called ReefGrid. It is a collaboration between QPSF, AIMS, JCU and UQ. A permanent communications link will be established to Davies Reef, 78km east of Townsville, where a network of environment monitoring sensors will be deployed.
Overview
This project is a collaboration between QPSF, AIMS, JCU and UQ and represents the first steps towards the development of a long-range environmental sensor network for monitoring marine eco-systems in tropical areas of the world - ReefGrid. This pilot program will be the first substantial long-range wireless sensor network for remote reef monitoring in the world.
In late 2004 a successful trial of long-range microwave communications from the AIMS weather station at Davies Reef (78km east of Townsville) to the shoreline adjacent to AIMS (paper). These trials confirmed the potential for low-power, long-range microwave data communications across ‘humidity ducts’ in the North Queensland region.
We are now building on this trial to deploy a permanent communications link (upto 20 Mbps capacity) between AIMS and the new Davies Reef weather station. This platform and link will be the ‘base station’ for a net
work of wireless (from Ambient Systems) and 1-wire bus sensors across this reef. This data will be streamed to shore, processed by DART software and technologies, stored in QPSF facilities and made available for research, outreach and promotional activities via the Internet. In addition we are preparing to stream live video data feeds from the remote reef site – a world first.
The remote sensor network collected data will be used to understand the environmental impacts on the reef ecosystem, for example, the conditions that lead to coral bleaching events. There is little data on the distribution of temperatures across a reef and through the water column. The sensor network will enable this data to be collected in spatial and temporal detail. This data will then be used to assist in determining the conditions that cause bleaching events, and to calibrate numerical models for the hydrodynamics of reef systems. An exciting possibility provided by the real time data stream is that researchers will know when the conditions suspected of causing bleaching are iminent. This 'warning' would then enable the direct observation and study of bleaching events.
DART Interaction
This project will use technology being developed in a number of DART work packages, as well as technologies developed within the JCU VeRG lab and QPSF. This web page is directly using AA4 (foster emerging wiki-based collaborative work practices). Other example are listed below.- Deploying sensors and connecting them to the network - DMQ1;
- Connecting sensors to storage repositories using CIMA middleware and data validation -DMQ2,DMQ3;
- Providing remote access to the Web Camera (panning and tilting) and control of the sensors (sampling frequency etc.) DMQ4;
- Data processing (daily averages, graphical output etc.) using Keppler DMQ5;
- The project will generate massive amounts of data that will be used in the Storage and Interoperability work packages (SI). Similarly, access to the data fits into the Discovery and Access (DA) and Contents and Rights (CR) work packages;
- Annotation and Assessment (AA workpackages) of the data in the database by a variety of users will increase its value by sharing observations.
