ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to present an aquatic monitoring framework based on wireless sensor networks that is scalable, adaptive with respect to topological changes in the network, power-aware in its middleware components, and endowed with energy-harvesting mechanisms to increase the lifetime of the monitoring system. The proposed framework addresses all aspects related to environmental monitoring: sensing, local and remote transmission, data storage, and visualization. This interactive network of sensors, data, analysis, and users represents an entirely new way of monitoring and understanding our environment and the anthropogenic impact. Each sensor node is composed of five main modules: control unit and data processing, signal acquisition and conditioning, local transmission radio, energy-harvesting mechanisms, and energy storage. The gateway is a sensor-node unit augmented with a long-range communication ability that allows the remote transmission to the base station. Measurements acquired by units and transmitted by the gateway finally reach the control center for data storage and aggregation.
