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Sensor Network and Energy Harvesting Solutions Towards Water Quality Monitoring in Developing Countries

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Abstract

Water-borne diseases pose a significant challenge to the sustainability of healthcare in developing countries like Ethiopia. While wireless sensor networks (WSN) address many environmental and societal issues through various applications, energy harvesting approaches extend the network's life. The paper describes a water quality monitoring system (WQM) using energy-harvesting wireless sensor networks. The paper identifies the considerations and trade-offs of various energy harvesting methods and WSNs solutions for WQM. In addition to presenting a real-time system for monitoring water quality, the paper examines the system's lifetime with a solar energy harvesting circuit. In addition, the paper discusses the problems encountered during system installation in the field. The field test is currently underway, but the prototype that has been implemented and tested shows that the system produces close to accurate values in various scenarios and can operate continuously without power outages. As a result, the energy harvesting technique ensures an indefinite lifetime for an economically viable water quality monitoring using WSN.

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Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this research is available from ThingSpeak website and that is not publicly available. However, the summary of the data collected is published in the article.

Code Availability

Code is available on request due to privacy.

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Funding

This work was fully funded by Research and Publication Directorate, Bule Hora University under Women’s Research grant No. BHU/RPD/267/13, 2020.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Information Technology, College of Informatics, Bule Hora University, Kebele 02, West Gujji Zone, 144, Bule Hora, Oromia, Ethiopia

    Deivanai Gurusamy & Galane Diriba

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  1. Deivanai Gurusamy
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  2. Galane Diriba
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Contributions

Both authors contributed to each phase of the research, however the first author DG designed the system. The manuscript was prepared by the first author DG and it was read and commented by the second author GD.

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Correspondence to Deivanai Gurusamy.

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Gurusamy, D., Diriba, G. Sensor Network and Energy Harvesting Solutions Towards Water Quality Monitoring in Developing Countries. Wireless Pers Commun 127, 2761–2779 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-022-09894-6

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