HydroSense: A low-cost, open-source, hydroclimatic monitoring system

Edward R. Prescott1, Alan M. Marchiori2, Benjamin R. Hayes3, Sean P. Reese3, Zhengri Fan2
1Department

of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 2Department of Computer Science, 3Watershed Sciences and Engineering Program, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA 17837
1. HYDROSENSE WIRELESS LINK

INTRODUCTION & GOALS

The reliance on costly industrial equipment and the
lack of an affordable data collection network are
inhibiting the widespread deployment of
hydroclimatic monitoring systems.
This projects goal is to enable the creation of a
grassroots wide-area wireless network for
reporting hydroclimatic data. The project is open
source, giving the world full access to the hardware
and software of the system.
Bucknell University, located on the banks of the
Susquehanna River, provides an excellent test bed for
scalability of a low-cost hydroinformatic system.

The 915MHz HydroSense Wireless Link radio

couples the Texas Instruments CC1120 narrow
band radio transmitter and CC1190 RF range
extender to enable communication up to 25km.
Features include:
GPS receiver for time synchronization and
positional awareness
Real time clock to maintain accurate time
Arduino and Raspberry Pi connectors, allowing
the board to operate as a gateway to the internet,
or as a sensor node
Status indication LEDs
Arduino library for communicating with a
cloud-based backend for storing and accessing
large amounts of data [3]

3. HYDROSENSE OPENSONDE
Radio
Transciever

Real Time Clock

Raspberry Pi Header

Status LEDs

GPS Receiver

Arduino Shield

The HydroSense OpenSonde utilizes off the

shelf sensors, a simple enclosure, and a
custom circuit board to dramatically reduce
costs. Features include:
Integrated Arduino Leonardo
SDI-12 Interface for power and data
PH Sensorex General Purpose Electrode (0-14pH)
ORP Sensorex Laboratory Electrode (+/- 2000mV)
DO Sensorex DO1200 Probe (0-20mg/L)
Conductivity[1] Sensorex CS150 Probe (0 2000uS)
Temperature Atlas Sci. ENV-TMP (-20 133C)
Pressure Atlas Sci. Ixian Probe (0 100PSI)
Ports for 3 Atlas Scientific EZO Sensors
Low cost enclosure (~$120)

FUTURE WORK

Developed Components
The HydroSense system includes 3 hardware components and 2
software components:
1) HydroSense Wireless Link, a 915MHz long-range radio for
communication
2) HydroSense Datalogger, an Arduino-based datalogger with support
for hydrological and climatic inputs
3) HydroSense OpenSonde, an Arduino-based multiparameter water
sonde
4) Open-source software libraries for Arduino and RaspberryPi
5) Communication and cloud-based infrastructure to easily publish sensor
data from any Arduino or RaspberryPi

The Internet/
Cloud

Raspberry Pi

HydroSense
OpenSonde
(3.)

HydroSense
Datalogger
(2.)

HydroSense
Wireless Link
Radio Transmitter
(1.)

HydroSense
Wireless Link
Radio Transmitter
(1.)

Deploy 3 HydroSense Stations on the

Susquehanna River in proximity to
Bucknell
Better characterize market segment for
a low cost water quality measurement
system
Refine low cost measurement
methodology
Design a cheap, highly manufacturable
enclosure for OpenSonde
Validate data collection relative to a commercial water sonde
Publish designs on official webpage (HydroSense.net)

Proposed Coverage of the

Susquehanna with 4 Gateways

CONCLUSIONS
Professional systems offer many conveniences, however:
A low cost radio network can eliminate many inconveniences
involved with retrieving data from a remote site.
The HydroSense System costs 1/10th that of a commercially
available system.

REFERENCES

2. HYDROSENSE DATALOGGER
The Hydrosense Datalogger is fully compatible
with the Arduino Integrated Development
Environment (IDE) and is designed to easily
interface with the Hydrosense OpenSonde and
Hydrosense Wireless Link. Features include:
Integrated Arduino Leonardo
Arduino shield compatibility
Ports for most standard weather sensors (e.g.
Davis Brand)
SD card for persistent storage
12V battery with solar charger
SDI-12 interface
General purpose IO ports for connecting
additional sensors
Very low cost (~$80)

Battery and Solar Connections

Weather Sensor
Connections

[1] Czaja, Z., A microcontroller system for measurement of three independent components
in impedance sensors using a single square pulse, Sensors and Actuators A: Physical,
(2012).
[2] Hicks, S., Aufdenkampe, A, Montgomery, D., "Sensor Networks, Dataloggers, and Other
Handy Gadgets Using Open-Source Electronics for the Christina River Basin
CZO, American Geophysical Union Annual Fall Meeting, December 4-10, 2011.
[3] Keyi Zhang, Alan Marchiori, Extending Semantic Sensor Networks with QueryML,
Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and
Communications, Work-in-progress session (PerCom), 2015.

Embedded
Arduino
Leonardo
MicroSD Slot

SDI-12
Connections

Raspberry Pi is a trademark of the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Arduino is a trademark of Arduino LLC.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Weather Sensor
Connections

Funding for this project was provided by the Bucknell University

Watershed Sciences and Engineering Program and a grant from the
Susquehanna River Heartland Coalition for Environmental Studies.