Low-cost electronic sensors for environmental research: Pitfalls and opportunities
Low-cost electronic sensors for environmental research: Pitfalls and opportunities
复制标题
DOI：
10.1177/0309133320956567
复制
发表时间：
2020-09-25
影响因子：
3.9
通讯作者：
Thompson, Joseph
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Chan, Kristofer;Schillereff, Daniel N.;Thompson, Joseph
重复观测巩固了我们对环境过程的理解，但资金限制往往限制了科学家部署密集的传统商业仪器网络的能力。物联网（IoT）和创客运动的快速发展为低成本电子传感器改变全球环境监测铺平了道路。可拆卸和廉价的传感器结构也为公民科学和参与式研究提供了令人兴奋的机会。基于Arduino开源硬件和软件的6年开发工作，广泛的实验室和现场测试，以及将此类技术纳入积极的研究计划，我们概述了设计和部署环境传感器的一系列成功，失败和经验教训。六个案例研究：地下水位深度探测器，空气和水质传感器，多参数气象站，时间排序湖泊沉积物陷阱，和声波风速计监测沙运输。论文中描述了复制我们传感器的原理图、代码和购买指南，详细的构建说明托管在我们的国王学院伦敦地理环境传感器Github存储库和FreeStation项目网站上。我们在每个案例研究中表明，手动设计和施工可以产生研究级的科学仪器（校准传感器的平均偏差误差为-0.04至23%）的一小部分，传统的成本，提供严格的，传感器特定的校准和现场测试进行。在分享我们的集体经验，建立自己的环境监测，我们打算为这篇论文作为催化剂的自然地理学家和更广泛的环境科学界开始将低成本传感器的发展纳入他们的研究活动。部署更密集的传感器网络的能力应最终导致在本地到全球范围内的上级环境监测。
Repeat observations underpin our understanding of environmental processes, but financial constraints often limit scientists' ability to deploy dense networks of conventional commercial instrumentation. Rapid growth in the Internet-Of-Things (IoT) and the maker movement is paving the way for low-cost electronic sensors to transform global environmental monitoring. Accessible and inexpensive sensor construction is also fostering exciting opportunities for citizen science and participatory research. Drawing on 6 years of developmental work with Arduino-based open-source hardware and software, extensive laboratory and field testing, and incorporation of such technology into active research programmes, we outline a series of successes, failures and lessons learned in designing and deploying environmental sensors. Six case studies are presented: a water table depth probe, air and water quality sensors, multi-parameter weather stations, a time-sequencing lake sediment trap, and a sonic anemometer for monitoring sand transport. Schematics, code and purchasing guidance to reproduce our sensors are described in the paper, with detailed build instructions hosted on our King's College London Geography Environmental Sensors Github repository and the FreeStation project website. We show in each case study that manual design and construction can produce research-grade scientific instrumentation (mean bias error for calibrated sensors -0.04 to 23%) for a fraction of the conventional cost, provided rigorous, sensor-specific calibration and field testing is conducted. In sharing our collective experiences with build-it-yourself environmental monitoring, we intend for this paper to act as a catalyst for physical geographers and the wider environmental science community to begin incorporating low-cost sensor development into their research activities. The capacity to deploy denser sensor networks should ultimately lead to superior environmental monitoring at the local to global scales.