A Metropolitan-Scale Testbed for Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks to Support CO₂ Reduction

Abstract

There exist two major contributions of network technology to reduce CO₂ levels: reducing the energy consumption of the network itself, and supporting areas of application to reduce CO₂ levels. The impact of the latter is potentially higher. Therefore, we present TUDμNet, a testbed for a metropolitan-scale heterogeneous sensor network with hundreds of nodes that help monitor and control CO₂ levels in urban areas. Our testbed has four major application domains where it is being applied: TU Darmstadt’s award winning solar house, where temperature and CO₂ levels are monitored; an 80 year old building in which a WSN is deployed to measure ambient parameters that contribute to future energy-saving remodeling; mobile sensors mounted on the streetcars of the public tramway system to measure location-specific CO₂ levels that are collected in a publicly accessible database to obtain CO₂ profiles; and a hybrid sensor network in TUD’s botanical garden to measure humidity, CO₂ levels and soil properties to improve the management of urban parks. In this paper we present the concepts behind the design of our testbed, its design challenges and our solutions, and potential applications of such metropolitan-scale sensor networks.