Aug 30 2010
CSIRO has been honored by the Australian ICT sector for establishing an intelligent sensor grid which enables the assessment of the drinking water quality in south-east Queensland. CSIRO won the iAward 2010 for research and development at the annual awards of the Australian Information Industry Association held in Melbourne.
CSIRO and Seqwater have jointly established the widest sensor grids that operate wirelessly in Australia, which is capable of monitoring the quality of drinking water in Lake Wivenhoe and its catchment areas supplying safe drinking water as part of the SEQ Water network.
The network comprises a total of 120 nodes with 45 floating nodes that monitors the temperature of water through the column of water. The rest 70 are land oriented and gather weather information and stock movement which spans the catchment areas.
CSIRO developed an independent sail-boat which operates by using solar energy and the catamaran moves along the floating nodes collecting data and maintaining the operation.
Dr. Matthew Dunbabin, CSIRO Senior Research Scientist, commented that the successful utilization and functioning of the network is significant for the iSnet technology for utilization in the merged sensor grids which will support the future water quality assessment systems. Dr. Dunbabin added that this technology enables detailed, high-speed data collection and allows the precise detection of real-time happenings including droughts, rainfall or impurities reaching the water bodies. This system can also be deployed for monitoring the greenhouse gases, he remarked.