Appropriateness of low cost sensor network for environmental monitoring in a tropical country: Experience and lessons learnt from real world deployment

B H Sudantha; Emeshi J Warusavitharana; Rangajeewa Ratnayake; P K.S. Mahanama; Massimiliano Cannata; Daniele Strigaro

doi:10.7287/peerj.preprints.27224v1

Appropriateness of low cost sensor network for environmental monitoring in a tropical country: Experience and lessons learnt from real world deployment

B H Sudantha ¹, Emeshi J Warusavitharana ², Rangajeewa Ratnayake², P K.S. Mahanama², Massimiliano Cannata³, Daniele Strigaro³

1 Department of Information Technology, University of Moratuwa, Moratuwa, Western, Sri Lanka

2 Department of Town & Country Planning, University of Moratuwa, Moratuwa, Western, Sri Lanka

3 Department of the Environment, Design and Construction, University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland, Canobbio, Lugano, Switzerland

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.27224v1

Published: 2018-09-20
Accepted: 2018-09-19

Subject Areas: Computer Aided Design, Real-Time and Embedded Systems
Keywords: 4ONSE, Low cost sensor network, Tropical countries, Deployment, Environmental Monitoring, Open Technologies, Deduru Oya Basin

Copyright: © 2018 Sudantha et al.
Licence: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.

Cite this article: Sudantha BH, Warusavitharana EJ, Ratnayake R, Mahanama PKS, Cannata M, Strigaro D. 2018. Appropriateness of low cost sensor network for environmental monitoring in a tropical country: Experience and lessons learnt from real world deployment. PeerJ Preprints 6:e27224v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27224v1

Abstract

Despite the advances in low cost open hardware and open software IoT (Internet of Things) enabled devices, their application in regional scale environmental monitoring has not been explored until the launch of 4ONSE (4 times Open and Non-conventional technology for Sensing the Environment) project, which is an ongoing research project between University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka and University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI). The project has paved the path for deploying low cost, open technologies based, non-conventional environmental monitoring systems in Deduru Oya river basin area of Sri Lanka. This research presents the selection process of appropriate sensors suitable for tropical climatic condition of Sri Lanka, issues encountered and remedies taken during the design and deployment phases.