Gene Eidson lead researcher of The Intelligent River project, which aims at monitoring the water conditions along the Savannah River, recently came up with a wireless sensor and the software that could monitor and transmit the environmental data.
This sensor is called Mote Stack and is capable of collecting and transmitting numerous types of environment related data like temperature, foreign particles and dissolved oxygen.
The Mote stack and the software are going to revolutionize the way we monitor the environment. - Clemson ecologist Gene Eidson
The goal of this project according to Eidson is to be able to monitor the water conditions at any point along the Savannah on his computer screen. He has patented the sensors, the buoy system and the software that will house the sensor in water and is now looking at the commercial aspect of the project. Eidson is targeting to revamp the old monitoring system with Mote Stack and the wireless technology and cover the entire river in a span of two years. Researchers are working on similar lines and aim to create an Intelligent Farm, to monitor the entire farm on the computer screen and Intelligent brick, which would monitor the internal state of the building.
Eidson explained that post implementation, some data would be made available free to the public, while some only to subscribers. The director of sustainability, Brian Sheehan regarded such real time environment monitoring systems as extremely useful. Eidson hails from the Aiken area, where he worked on a project that used this technology. The 3.3 million dollar project at Aiken created wireless parkways that helped in draining the storm water and hence lessened the chances of contaminated water flow into the rivers. This project implemented the sensors used in the Intelligent River Project. Chris Bellamy, a research specialist at Clemson, was able to access the ground data while standing on a pathway by using his android phone. Eidson was positive about the future enhancements in the application of this technology.