@unpublished{pittir16531,
           month = {January},
           title = {ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING THROUGH WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS},
          author = {Tyler Davis},
            year = {2013},
        keywords = {Wireless sensor network, environmental monitoring, sap flow},
             url = {http://d-scholarship-dev.library.pitt.edu/16531/},
        abstract = {Wireless sensor networks (WSN) deployed for the purpose of environmental monitoring are becoming increasingly popular.  This research examines the use of WSNs for the application of studying the hydrologic cycle with respect to the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum.  The goal was to pair WSN technology with inexpensive hydrological sensors for the purpose of affordable and reliable environmental monitoring.  This work encompasses the design, construction, and calibration of sap flow sensors; an examination into the power characteristics of the environmental sensors used to study hydrology and the wireless motes used to communicate data in the WSN; the results from deploying a pilot WSN test bed; the deployment, maintenance, and findings of a main WSN test bed; and the primarily results from the processed environmental sensor data.  Lab experiments were used to determine an optimal sampling rate of environmental sensors, which was a compromise between the battery life of the motes and the temporal resolution of the environmental measurements.  Based on the sampling rate, it was determined that the thermal dissipation sap flow method was the most practical for WSN applications.  For the purposes of large-scale deployments, lab-made sap flow sensors provide a comparable cost-effective alternative to their commercial counterparts.  Environmental monitoring of soil moisture, soil water potential, and sap flow was successful and exhibited spatial distributions and temporal changes within the main test bed.  Analysis of the WSN communication revealed numerous factors impact network stability.  While environmental monitoring through WSNs is feasible, its practicality is dependent on numerous variables.}
}