DECEMBER 2015
Sensors
with a Purpose Libelium’s
Smart Sensors
Aim to Change the World— One Node at a Time
› Automotive
Signal Conditioning Sensors
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CONTENTS
Sensor Technology
EDITORIAL STAFF Content Editor Alex Maddalena amaddalena@aspencore.com Digital Content Manager Heather Hamilton hhamilton@aspencore.com Tel | 208-639-6485 Global Creative Director Nicolas Perner nperner@aspencore.com Graphic Designer Carol Smiley csmiley@aspencore.com Audience Development Claire Hellar chellar@aspencore.com Register at EEWeb http://www.eeweb.com/register/
TECH REPORT
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Sensara Senior Lifestyle System Enables Seniors to Live Independently at Home PRODUCT WATCH
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ZMDI ZSSC4151 Sensors for Automotive Applications
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Arrow Product Insights VL6180X from STMicroelectronics; Si1147 and Si7021 from Silicon Labs; APDS-9190 from Avago Technologies
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Inside the Lab: Linear Technology’s LTC 2000A DAC INDUSTRY INTERVIEW
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Sensors with a Purpose Interview with David Gascón – President and Co-founder of Libelium CASE STUDY
Published by AspenCore 950 West Bannock Suite 450 Boise, Idaho 83702 Tel | 208-639-6464 Victor Alejandro Gao General Manager Executive Publisher
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Reading Beehives: Smart Sensor Technology Monitors Bee Health and Global Pollination
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Cody Miller Global Media Director Group Publisher
EEWeb
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Sensor Technology
Sensara
Senior Lifestyle System Enables Seniors to Live Independently at Home
By Cees Links – Founder & CEO of GreenPeak Technologies www.greenpeak.com www.greenpeak.com
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TECH REPORT
Elderly people—our senior citizens—often want to live at home longer because that is the environment they are used to. In many cases, they can do so independently. However, if something happens, will they be able to alert someone and get the necessary help? Everyone has heard of family situations where an elderly person was too incapacitated to get out of bed in the morning, or they fell and were not able to call for help. Seniors living home alone can generate a lot of concern— not only for the senior person, but also for their children, friends, or caretakers. There is a new solution that utilizes the latest generation of sensors, communication and smart cloud technologies that addresses this need for at-home monitoring for seniors in need of help. The Sensara Senior Lifestyle System from GreenPeak is a new-generation Internet of Things (IoT) service application that can help people to live at home longer, secure and comfortable, and that provides peace of mind to seniors, their loved ones and their caretakers. This system does not use intrusive cameras or devices that people constantly need to wear on their body, making it seamlessly integrate into daily life.
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Sensor Technology
How it Works The Sensara Senior Lifestyle System is comprised of a limited number of small sensors (five for apartments to eight for large houses) that are installed in the user’s home – a few motion sensors and a few open/close sensors. These sensors are installed at strategic places in the home—like the living room, bathroom, kitchen, hallway and front door—and they automatically connect wirelessly to a gateway that is plugged into a standard home internet router provided by their telephone or cable provider. The sensors in the system are not only small and battery operated, but they do not have to be worn, making them truly “install and forget.” After installation, these sensors start to collect data about what happens in the house. This data is uploaded to an analytics engine in the cloud and, over a period of about two weeks, the analytics engine has enough data to be able to recognize living patterns of the person in the home—at what time someone gets up, how long the bathroom is used, with what repetition the kitchen is used, how long one is out of the house for shopping, when are they taking a nap, etc. Once the data for behavioral patterns are collected, exceptions can be detected and analyzed—for example, minor exceptions like skipping a meal to major ones like not getting out of bed in the morning, or even suspicious inactivity in the afternoon.
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TECH REPORT The Sensara data analytics algorithm basically compares the inputs from the sensors (or the lack of inputs) with the normal behavior of a person, and based on the detection of exceptions and anomalies, it sends a (text) message to the smart phone of a caregiver, family member, or friend. The message could read something like this: “Normally, Ann is out of bed by now, but today she is not, maybe you want to give her a call.” With a single click the call can be made, and further action can be taken.
The Value Provided The Sensara Senior Lifestyle System provides something that is very valuable: peace of mind, both for the senior person living at home alone, as well as for family members, possibly living far away. Of course, the system cannot replace personal contact, like visits or phone calls, but it is a very welcome and easy addition. If something out of the ordinary happens it will not go unnoticed, while at the same time the senior’s privacy is fully respected—the system does not require a camera and preserves personal privacy. The system does not require wearing emergency buttons, such as a fall detector, although those can be easily included as additional sensors as well. The Sensara system picks up on subtle changes over time that are typically overlooked by other solutions such as slow deterioration. These downward trends can be easily overlooked, until something critical occurs. One example of this is the user’s walking speed throughout the house. By collecting data over a longer period in time, the
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Sensor Technology
system can recognize if someone has started to walk significantly slower than two months ago. Walking slower is a good early indicator of the risk of taking a bad fall and possibly breaking a hip. If a gradual slowdown or a change is noticed, the Sensara system will generate an alert to a family member or a caretaker.
Big Brother A logical question that often arises is whether or not this system respects the full privacy of the user. However, in a way, actually it does. The real underlying question remains: it worth it? Is it not great to have a Big Brother? Since George Orwell’s 1984, the term Big Brother has a bad name and reputation, and rightly so. But couldn’t having a Big Brother be something special and very positive? In a way the Sensara system is a form of Big Brother that is being used for good. It is probably time to rethink our image of Big Brother. The new age of the IoT helps us to quantify our lives; to measure is to know. Quantifying our lives helps us to make better quality decisions, or even to assist us to actually make those tough decisions. Quantifying our lifestyle helps us to live more safely, securely, and comfortably. Several Sensara users have said that since they started using the system, their relationship with their loved ones has improved. But there is obviously a flipside. What about the data being collected? Is it secure? Can it be abused? Those are all valid questions, but they are not necessarily that different from asking the same question about using a credit card
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in a store. We know that there is a serious balance between convenience and easeof-use on one side and security and privacy on the other side. But in the same way as internet hacks did not stop us from using our credit cards, we will learn how to deal with security and privacy on the IoT as well.
About GreenPeak Technologies GreenPeak Technologies is a fabless semiconductor company and is a leader in IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee silicon solutions for the Smart Home and the Internet of Things. GreenPeak is privately funded. It is headquartered in Utrecht, The Netherlands and has offices in the United States, Belgium, China, France, India and Korea. GreenPeak has won the prestigious 2014 Deloitte Fast50 Award and is recognized as a leader in developing new wireless technologies for consumer electronics and Smart Home applications, demonstrating rapid growth and adoption by major customers. For more information, please visit www.greenpeak.com. www.greenpeak.com
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Sensor Technology
ZMDI’s ZSSC4151 provides users needing an analog signal with the benefits of digital calibration and compensation.
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PRODUCT WATCH
ZSSC4151
Automotive
Sensor Signal Conditioner
from
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Sensor Technology
FEATURES
The ZSSC4151 features a 16-bit RISC MCU
◊
18-bits of resolution and which can be used
Temperature compensation
interfaced to an analog front-end with 12- to with nearly any type of bridge sensor. The
◊
Sensor biasing by internal voltage
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7mA of maximum supply current
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I2C interface option
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Latch-up immunity up to ±100mA
digital core enables a correction algorithm to internally handle compensation for factors such as thermal drift, non-linearity, and sensor offset. These factors are stored in the onchip EEPROM. Calibration is also controlled digitally, which reduces noise sensitivity and eliminates the need for trimming. Once
◊
Short-circuit protection for AOUT
the measured value is digitally corrected, it is then output as an analog signal through a 12-bit DAC or over the serial interface. The ZSSC4151 is AEC-Q100 qualified and targeted at automotive applications, including pressure sensors, strain gauges, mass airflow sensors, and temperature sensors. ZMDI’s ZSSC4151 provides users needing an analog signal with the benefits of digital calibration and compensation. Click the image below to watch the EEWeb Tech Lab demonstration of the ZSSC4151.
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PRODUCT WATCH
ZSSC4151 Block Diagram
Demo Board
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Sensor Technology
PR
DUCT INSIGHTS
For this Arrow New Product Insights, we will discuss three proximity and gesture recognition sensors from Avago, Silicon Labs, and STMicroelectronics, using either infrared reflectance or time of flight calculations. We will also take a look at the Si7021 humidity sensor from Silicon Labs.
The VL6180X from STMicroelectronics uses their patented FlightSense technology to measure absolute distance independent of the target reflectance. FlightSense technology precisely measures the time it takes for a signal to reach the nearest object and return, giving a time of flight calculation. This means that measurements will no longer be dependent on the color or reflectivity of the target objects, ensuring accurate measurements every time. Combined with an ambient light sensor, high accuracy in even the lowest light, and no additional optics or gaskets needed, this component is easy to integrate into any system.
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Silicon Labs’ Si1147 combines a reflectance proximity detector, ambient light sensor, and UV index. It is easily controlled by either taking measurements via polling or being placed in an autonomous state where it takes measurements at pre-defined intervals. Using pre-defined intervals with host interrupts allows the host controller to sleep longer, saving energy. Also, to compensate for infrared light affecting lux measurements, a separate channel is available that reports solely the infrared light measurements. Using both sets of data, the perceived light level as seen by the human eye can be calculated.
PRODUCT WATCH
The Si7021 from Silicon Labs is a digital humidity and temperature sensor that contains all the circuitry within the sensor itself required to create a calibrated, digital output. Using a patented CMOS and low-k dielectrics, drift is minimized allowing for long-term stability in reading. With a built analog to digital converter, signal processing and corrections due to temperature and device variances, the Si7021 outputs highly accurate and consistent information in a simple I2C interface.
The APDS-9190 from Avago Technologies is a light to digital device that contains all the circuitry to detect visible and infrared light and transmit the measured values over a digital I2C interface for easy microcontroller interface. This digital interface is more immune to noise than analog and operates at up to 400 kilohertz to provide fast, clean data. The APDS9190 offers a wide dynamic lux range, working well in bright sunlight as well as dark rooms and allowing for short range operation even behind dark glass. All of this is readily and easily available using a simple eight-pin package.
Due to the way that humidity sensors work, any change to the dielectric constant of their polymer film will cause variances in the readings of a humidity sensor, making them highly susceptible to foreign contamination. In order to protect the Si7021 from these contaminants, a hydrophobic and oleophobic cover can be factory-fitted on the sensor before being shipped out. The cover is very low profile and protects from particulates down to point three five microns. Besides the offered protection, this cover is resistant to damage from soldering, meaning typical assembly methods can be used. The Si7021 is a high quality humidity and temperature with the industry’s only membrane cover that protects the sensor and ensures it’s continued accuracy. For more info on the latest products, join us for the next Arrow New Product Insights. Visitarrow.com Arrow.com.
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MYLINK
MYLINK
Sensor Technology
INSIDE THE
LAB
Inside the
LAB
LTC2000A
from Linear Technology Inside the Lab is a webseries sponsored by Arrow Electronics dedicated to exploring the latest in technology and electronics. In this episode we’ll introduce you to Linear Technology’s LTC2000A 2.7Gsps output DAC.
Sponsored by Arrow Electronics
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PRODUCT WATCH
LINEAR TECHNOLOGY’S LTC2000A FAMILY OF HIGH-SPEED DACS PROVIDE THE PERFORMANCE AND FEATURE SET NECESSARY FOR APPLICATIONS REQUIRING HIGH SAMPLE RATES WITHOUT COMPROMISING SIGNAL QUALITY. The LTC2000A boasts exceptional spectral purity, low additive phase noise, up to 16-bit resolution, and high full-scale output current that is adjustable from 10mA to 60 mA. The low additive phase noise of 156dBc/ Hz makes the LTC2000A suitable for use in the most demanding applications, such as broadband wired or wireless communications, RADAR, and instrumentation. The LTC2000A achieves 80dBc spuriousfree dynamic range (SFDR) at 50 MHz, and SFDR better than 68dBc from DC to 1.08 GHz to meet the stringent requirements of these applications. A 32-lane DDR LVDS interface helps drive the high sample rates, but the device can also be configured in a single port, 16-lane configuration while still providing up to 1.35 Gsps. Linear Technology provides a DC2085 demo kit to show some of the LTC2000A’s capabilities. The board comes with the LTC2000A-16, which is a 16-bit version of the device in a 15mm by 9mm BGA package. There
is also a Stratix FPGA, which is used to drive the 32-lane DDR LDS interface. For timing, there is the LTC6946 ultra-low noise Integer-N synthesizer with integrated VCO, which is used to generate the maximum sample clock of 2.7 GHz and is also the recommended timing solution for the LTC2000A. The https://www.arrow.com/en/ timing can be configured with Linear research-and-events/videos/ Technology’s PLLWizard software. arrow-inside-the-lab-ltc2000a-v2
Linear Technology’s LTC2000A family of high-speed DACs provide the performance and feature set necessary for applications requiring high sample rates without compromising signal quality. For more information as well as a video demonstration of the product, visit Arrow.com. arrow.com
CLICK 19
Sensor Technology
Sensors
with a Purpose Libelium’s Smart Sensors Aim to Change the World— One Node at a Time Interview with David Gascón – Libelium
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INDUSTRY INTERVIEW
Libelium is a smart sensor manufacturer based in Zaragosa, Spain. Founded over ten years ago by David Gascón and Alicia Asín, Libelium began developing devices for what we now know as IoT devices—years before the trend started gaining traction. The original intent for the company was to make a horizontal sensor platform that can be applied to a variety of different vertical markets. Now, with the proliferation of IoT platforms and an abundance of wireless protocols, Libelium’s unique sensor technology is being used to power the IoT Revolution. The applications appear to be
boundless—from monitoring soil moisture levels in vineyards to air quality in major cities—and this is only the beginning. Libelium has recently announced initiatives to release open-source devices at a low price to universities and educational institutions to engage with the next generation of engineers and IoT devices— all with the intent of changing the world for the better. EEWeb spoke to David Gascón about some of the unique sensors the company has been developing and why it is more important than ever to engage with young engineers.
ONE OF THE MOST PROMISING MARKETS FOR LIBELIUM IS THE “SMART CITY.”
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Sensor Technology
Do you consider Libelium a sensor company or a mesh network company? Our focus is on getting as many sensors integrated as possible by controlling them and sending information using any kind of wireless technology. Basically, we are one of the few companies in the world that are quite agnostic in terms of sensors and radio technologies. We use what we call a horizontal platform—meaning, we never focus entirely on a specific vertical market, but we try to build a modular platform that could make any sensor work with any kind of wireless protocol. Today, we have around 15 different radio technologies working out of the box with our sensor platform—protocols like ZigBee or 802.154 to newer technologies like 4G and Bluetooth low-energy (BLE), LoRaWAN, Sigfox, etc. We never force our clients to use any particular protocol—we give some recommendations, but the good thing is that our platform is modular, meaning they can choose what radio technology they want for their projects. Regarding the sensors, we have integrated more than one-hundred different sensors for different vertical applications, from environmental applications like CO2, NO2, O3, particle matter (PM10) monitors for smart cities to water quality sensors such as pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), ORP, etc. The only thing that these sensor nodes have in common is the core platform, which is comprised of our main microcontroller board called Waspmote with the inputs and outputs and the low-consumption algorithms that we run into our core. Waspmote controls
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INDUSTRY INTERVIEW
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Sensor Technology
the inputs, which are the sensors, and the outputs, which are the radios.
So Libelium essentially acts as an interface company between the sensors and the network, allowing them to communicate no matter what sensors are used and what protocols are implemented?
WE NEVER FORCE OUR CLIENTS TO USE ANY PARTICULAR PROTOCOL— WE GIVE SOME RECOMMENDATIONS, BUT THE GOOD THING IS THAT OUR PLATFORM IS MODULAR, MEANING THEY CAN CHOOSE WHAT RADIO TECHNOLOGY THEY WANT FOR THEIR PROJECTS.
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Yes. Libelium’s core technology allows exactly that. However, we do not wait for the client to ask us for a specific sensor or radio technology; we give a solution out of the box, so we choose the sensors and integrate them and create an API to program them. We provide an out-of-the-box product, so sometimes the client wants their own sensors to be integrated, but most of the time, they just choose from our wide list of available sensors (+100). It is a complete solution, but the main development was in the low consumption algorithms and the actual hardware that are a part of the core.
What have been the most popular sensors used in your networks? There are three vertical markets that are really big right now. One of the most promising markets for Libelium is the “smart city.” Many cities all over the world are working to become “smart,” meaning the ability to send vital information to the citizens about the quality of the air, the quality of the water, and other important measurements like ultraviolet radiation. Another part of the smart cities is the smart parking sensors, which let drivers know where and when parking spots become available around the city.
“Smart water” sensing, which determines quality of water, is another big area for Libelium. This is something that could never be measured before in an autonomous way. Normally, you have many products used by field engineers that are put into the water to make measurements and are then brought back to the city. We came out with a new product that has allowed us to make these measurements autonomously that can be deployed in rivers, lakes, or the ocean. The user can deploy hundreds of sensor points to get data in real-time with all of the parameters for water quality coming from the field. The third major area for us is “smart agriculture.” This has been a popular area for a lot of our customers who want to prevent pest and diseases on vineyards, for example. We have a lot of clients that are integrating soil moisture and leaf humidity sensors to see what are the real conditions of the plants. The idea is that these farmers can build
INDUSTRY INTERVIEW a map of probabilities not only when they have to irrigate the fields, but also if the conditions that are facing them at the moment make the probability of suffering from plant disease. The goal is to use the proper chemicals to prevent disease at the exact moment when they are needed. The customers are producing better crops as a result while simultaneously saving money.
Why did Libelium target these particular sensor areas? When we started Libelium ten years ago, there was nothing related to the Internet of Things (IoT). At the time, we knew about wireless sensors and connecting sensors to the Internet, but we didn’t anticipate what vertical markets would comprise our business. We decided not to go to any specific vertical markets, so we developed a horizontal platform in a way that we could deliver technology to any company that wouldn’t want to build their own products, and use off-
THE USER CAN DEPLOY HUNDREDS OF SENSOR POINTS TO GET DATA IN REAL-TIME WITH ALL OF THE PARAMETERS FOR WATER QUALITY COMING FROM THE FIELD. the-shelf products for their particular applications. For the horizontal platform, we focused on the hardware and on the SDK. We built hundreds of APIs that were ready to work out of the box. We released them as open-source, so clients became interested in our products because it gave them control of the libraries and they can alter some of the things to fit their needs. At that time, there were around ten large companies that were working on horizontal platforms, and nowadays, there are only a couple left—some closed or were acquired, although the most of them changed to become vertical market suppliers.
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Sensor Technology
Does Libelium provide any indoor sensing solutions?
WE ARE WORKING ON MANY INDUSTRIAL PROJECTS THAT USE OUR SENSORS TO MONITOR THE FACTORY CONDITIONS.
Definitely. All of our sensors are built to work indoors and outdoors. Obviously, we focus a lot on the outdoor enclosure to make it more safe and durable to use. We are working on many industrial projects that use our sensors to monitor the factory conditions. We have also worked on sensors that measure how many people carrying Bluetooth or WiFi devices pass through a certain point. This is not a typical sensor; it is a Linux machine that is tied to our Meshlium network with a more complex software that is able to count the packages sent from smartphones to count the people passing through a specific area.
Where is Libelium headed next with its technology? We are currently working on several new interesting product lines. We recently launched LoRaWAN and Sigfox radios, which are protocols known as Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) they can be used with public and private
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base stations and will have massive deployments in both Europe and the U.S. On the one side, we will be upgrading our sensor lines to work with the new radio technologies, but we are also working on the 4G cell of radios because smart cities will be using these mobile base stations, so we have to move the technology to that new wireless technology. We keep on integrating more complex sensor—in fact, we are working on a new pollen sensor that will be released in 2016. This is a big problem in many cities with people that are allergic to pollen. Cities want to measure the amount of pollen and from what type of plant, so we have had many requests for these sensors.
What recent initiatives has Libelium launched to help energize young engineers and developers? Libelium has an educational side called Cooking Hacks. This is a site we created to sell starter kits and development products for people that want to start making their own IoT products, but who cannot afford professional solutions. We created different development
INDUSTRY INTERVIEW and starter kits at an affordable price so that anybody who is interested can develop an IoT solution. We will also be launching a program called IoT Spartans. Basically, we want to find the best 300 IoT developers, because it will be a big challenge in the industry for companies to find people able to program and make IoT applications at every level. In this case, we are looking for the best IoT developers at universities because we are looking for new, young engineers. This is a program we will be promoting in conjunction with many universities and research centers that already have shown interest. This will be fun because we will be giving them starter kits and seeing what they can do with them. In some way, we will be preparing these young engineers to get into the new IoT revolution. The other project we are working on is the first e-health sensor platform in the world that is open-source. We created a device with fifteen biometrical sensors to measure user’s conditions, such as pulse, ECG, oxygen levels, blood pressure,
temperature and many others. At the moment it is at a starter-kit level with just a PCB and some electronics, but in 2016, we will be launching a program to get this product to a professional level. We will be making an open call to engineering companies, research centers, and universities to get into this program to help us build a professional medical device. We have the core of the device, but we need the help from the engineering community to help make it not only an electronic device, but also a useful medical device with FDA certifications. Our product is 100-times less expensive than professional medical devices, so if we could make a professional e-health device at 100-times less, then it will truly change the health and medical industry, especially in developing countries that can’t afford expensive equipment in their hospitals.
BASICALLY, WE WANT TO FIND THE BEST 300 IOT DEVELOPERS, BECAUSE IT WILL BE A BIG CHALLENGE IN THE INDUSTRY FOR COMPANIES TO FIND PEOPLE ABLE TO PROGRAM AND MAKE IOT APPLICATIONS AT EVERY LEVEL.
For more information about Libelium go to: http://www.libelium.com http://www.libelium.com For more information about David Gascón go to: http://www. libelium.com/david-gascon/ link here for david gascon
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Sensor Technology
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CASE STUDY
Reading
BEEHIVES Smart Sensor Technology Monitors Bee Health and Global Pollination By Libelium
Award-winning smart beehive project is a unique platform to monitor honey bees remotely and in real time, within the hive. Honey bees have throughout history been a keystone species, pollinating an estimated 70 percent of all plants and underpinning some 30 percent of the global food supply. Because the viability of beehives is a critical predictor of the planet’s future health and agricultural sustainability, reports of a precipitous decline in the number of colonies around the world have stirred considerable alarm.
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Sensor Technology
Researchers, environmentalists and public policy makers alike are focused on understanding this current ebb of productivity, which has been associated with several likely factors: • Global warming has accelerated the growth rates of damaging pathogens such as mites, viruses and fungi. It has also seriously upset the natural rhythms adapted to by bee populations over centuries of previously consistent seasonal weather patterns. • Pesticides used in crop production are ingested and transmitted back to hives via bees during pollination, resulting in the spread of damaging disease, weakening and very often the total collapse of colonies. Waspmote Plug & Sense! Smart Environment model – Up to 6 sensor probes
Monitoring Beehives Team
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• Increased atmospheric electromagnetic radiation associated with exponential growth in the numbers of cell phones and wireless communications towers is believed to interfere with the bee’s ability to navigate in flight.
CASE STUDY
For the engineering study, the group selected Libelium’s Waspmote wireless sensor platform because of the wide range of sensors available. Technologies involved in the Monitoring Beehives (2B) OR! (2B) Project
READING BEEHIVES
THE SOLUTION
Researchers understand that any meaningful response to these environmental changes and potentially related threats will first require analyzing conditions within bee colonies. The challenge is, of course, that honey bees are extremely protective of their hives and virtually impossible to monitor at night or during inclement weather.
The students used as their starting point Waspmote, a modular hardware sensor platform developed by Libelium that can connect any sensor network and wireless technology to any cloud platform. The UCC team integrated gas and hive condition sensors, ZigBee radios, 3G and GSM communications to look at the impact of carbon dioxide, oxygen, temperature, humidity, chemical pollutants and airborne dust levels on the honey bees.
A group of biology, food business, and embedded systems engineering students at University College of Cork in Ireland recently took up the challenge, developing a unique platform through which they are able to monitor, collect and analyze activity within the colonies unobtrusively and on a unique scale. Dubbed “(2B) OR! (2B),” the UCC “smart beehive” project, which was awarded top honors in the IEEE/IBM Smarter Planet Challenge 2014, deploys big data, mobile technology, wireless sensor networks and cloud computing to record and upload encrypted data.
Dr. Emanuel Popovici, the Director of Embedded Systems Group at UCC, called the winning project an exceptional nexus at which “long established technologies and beekeeping practices meet the latest advances in electronic technology.” Data from initial observations of the project were captured in two scientific papers and three invention disclosures with smarter hive features and experiments currently being carried out at the UCC Embedded Systems Laboratory. A second deployment of the
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Sensor Technology
UCC “smart beehive” is planned to further study sensor combinations used in the first phase. All data will be made available. PhD candidate Fiona Edwards Murphy spearheaded the group project, cosupervised by Dr. Popovici and Dr. Padraig Whelan, of the school of Biology, Earth and Environmental Sciences (BEES) at UCC.
It was important that the sensor node fit inside the beehive, without impeding activity of the beekeeper and to avoid any interference with the bees.
Waspmore Smat Beehives
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“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left,” a quote often attributed to Albert Einstein once warned. “No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.” In 1901 the prominent Belgian writer Maurice Maeterlinck published “The Life of the Bee,” and helped to popularize the idea that the bee was a vital ecological linchpin. The work was originally written in French. Maeterlinck provocatively suggested that we owed our civilization to the bee, that readers might conclude that the extinction of the bee would lead to the collapse of civilization.
What neither Einstein nor anyone else could not predict was the use of smart technology to integrate beehive sensors and digest the data they collect. Such platforms have a critical role to play not only in ensuring pollination but, ultimately, in monitoring, understanding and managing precious global resources of all kinds.
TECHNOLOGY: WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS For the engineering study, the group selected Libelium’s Waspmote wireless sensor platform because of the wide range of sensors available. Waspmote Plug & Sense! sensor nodes integrate more than 70 sensors, adapting to any wireless sensor scenario such as air and noise pollution, irrigation control, livestock tracking, vineyard monitoring, water quality, etc. With its waterproof enclosure, Waspmote Plug & Sense! is suitable for outdoor deployment, and sensor probes are easy to add or change. Another requirement for the honeybee project was the ability to harvest energy, and the Waspmotes installed
CASE STUDY
Monitoring Beehives Cloud Options
are energy neutral with solar panels that allow the nodes to work autonomously for years, thanks to Waspmote’s extreme low power consumption. It was important that the sensor node fit inside the beehive, without impeding activity of the beekeeper and to avoid any interference with the bees. Waspmote nodes installed in the beehives measure CO, CO2, O2, temperature, humidity, chemical pollutants (NO2, H2, NH3, Toluene, Isobutane) and airborne dust, all important indicators of the health of the bee colony within. One objective of monitoring is to send important real time information directly to the beekeeper; another is to collect data for analysis, and to build a database that enables partners in biology to study pests and diseases. The sensor nodes communicate via Zigbee and form a network. A gateway node or Meshlium multiprotocol gateway receives the sensor data for
transmission to the Internet—the Cloud—via Ethernet, Wi-Fi or 3G/ GPRS, depending on available connectivity. The sensor data collected at the hive is readable on mobile devices, PCs, smartphones or tablets, and can be integrated into maps or geographic information systems (GIS), or easily imported into third-party applications or databases for analysis. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) blend high connectivity, low power, and interoperability with electronic devices and diverse data systems. Read more about Libelium’s product waspmote plug lines in Waspmote, Plug&&sense Sense! and Meshlium Meshlium websites.
One objective of monitoring is to send important real time information directly to the beekeeper; another is to collect data for analysis, and to build a database that enables partners in biology to study pests and diseases.
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