A LOW-COST, MULTI-PARAMETER WATER QUALITY SENSOR

As the demand for water increases globally, ensuring the water quality will become paramount. Our goal is to create an affordable multi-parameter sensor device that will be able to monitor stream health using three sensors: conductivity, temperature, and turbidity. We intend for these sensors to be installed in the field and be mesh-networked, allowing the devices to communicate with each other, and allowing researchers to more easily map spatiotemporal variations in streamwater dynamics. With 70-90 percent of stream length in many parts of the country being headwaters, there is not yet a clear understanding on the processes which control their water quality. With a wireless network, researchers will be able to collect data remotely from all sensors at once, saving time collecting, thereby eliminating one of the major hurtles for obtaining high resolution spatiotemporal data. Similar solutions currently exist, but are prohibitively expensive for most users.

The sensor was to be built upon the TI-Launchpad development platform. This platform incorporates a processor and amount of memory that will ensure that the sensor will have enough resources to perform its duties, while also allowing for any possible upgrades in the future. The sensors themselves were hand-built and the circuit boards were professionally fabricated after an initial prototyping phase. We have completed the conductivity and temperature sensors, and are working on finalizing the calibration techniques for turbidity. The next step will be implementing on-board storage for data collection, and then finally implementation of the networking protocols for the mesh network and remote data collection using a radio-frequency module.