Non-Contact Capacitive-Based Water Wave Sensing for Reservoir Surveillance
Inventor
This project presents a new concept, open source and small-sized Water-Surface Drone for real-time condition monitoring and surveillance in water resources such as reservoirs and lakes. Many illegal activities can happen around the areas such as illegal fishing, logging, swimming, wildlife crimes and illegal waste disposal into the water; and monitoring tasks can be challenging. The proposed Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) has three main focus areas, namely water level alert, water quality monitoring and intruder surveillance. The proposed USV is completely open-source for the convenience of modification and upgrade, in terms of design as well as programming. The invention provides an array of water level sensors for measuring water displacement, and interpret it into directional and amplitude information. It is also equipped with water sensors for acquiring data such as water level, pH, turbidity, and temperature to monitor water quality in reservoirs. The system uses a map-based Web service, as well as video cameras, water level analyzers, and wireless communication routers necessary to display real-time water level changes in reservoirs on a Web platform. With this system, the water resources are safe-guarded from human-caused issues and contamination.
