ERCIM News No.26 - July 1996 - INESC
Remote Monitoring of Water Levels
by Alexandra Sá Carvalho
INESC's Centres of Automation of SMEs and of Mobile and Personal
Communications have just completed a joint project with Hidrorumo, an EDP
Group (Electricidade de Portugal) company, for the remote monitoring of
river water levels.
The system is made up of a network of remote stations, positioned next to
the monitoring sites and equipped with one or several sensors, a data acquisition
and processing system (which will also act as the physical interface with
the sensors) a storage and satellite based (Inmarsat C) transmission system
and a stand alone solar power system. The collected data is transmitted
via an earth station to a PC in the Control Centre which has been equipped
with two software modules: one as an interface and reception of the data
transmitted by the earth station and another for information processing,
storage and visualisation applications.
The Centre of Mobile and Personal Communications, based in Lisbon, was responsible
for supplying the storage and transmission system from the remote stations
and the interface and reception software for the data from the Control Centre
(having made use of the results from INESC's project for monitoring of fishing
activities, MONICAP). The other parts of the programme were developed by
the Automation Centre, in Oporto, which was also responsible for the operating
specifications, tests and validation of the system.
There are currently two stations in operation, respectively on the Rivers
Guadiana and Coa connected to a Control Centre located in Hidrorumo's Oporto
installations. The systems have already been tested and validated by the
company and the possibility of broadening their use to cover other sites,
both in Portugal and abroad, are currently being analysed in conjunction
with INESC.
Hidrorumo's technical staff are now able to enjoy the real-time capture
of readings from sensors located in rough terrain areas and are able to
react promptly based on the sudden movements of upstream water levels, permitting,
among others, a more efficient and rational management of the water stored
in the reservoirs and the rate of discharge, the control of which can be
critical in the event of sudden weather changes. From INESC's viewpoint,
these types of solution may have other applications such as the control
of water quality and other environmental applications.
Please contact:
Alexandra Sá Carvalho - INESC
Tel: +351 1 3100377
E-mail: asc@inesc.pt
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