WiseEye: next generation expandable and programmable camera trap platform for wildlife research

Funding: The work was supported by the RCUK Digital Economy programme to the dot.rural Digital Economy Hub; award reference: EP/G066051/1. The work of S. Newey and RJI was part funded by the Scottish Government's Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services (RESAS). Details published as an Open Source Toolkit, PLOS Journals at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0169758Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Applications notice

The discipline programs of the Space and Terrestrial (S&T) Applications Program are described and examples of research areas of current interest are given. Application of space techniques to improve conditions on earth are summarized. Discipline programs discussed include: resource observations; environmental observations; communications; materials processing in space; and applications systems/information systems. Format information on submission of unsolicited proposals for research related to the S&T Applications Program are given

Magseal Leak Testing Device

Magnetic Seal Corp. has forged a reputable name for itself in the high performance seal industry. Despite great manufacturing practices and product quality, they strive to be even better. Their focus on product quality and cost efficiency lead them to the realization that understanding and fully characterizing porosity in their products was crucial. Due to the nature of the casting process, their magnetic housings inherently have some porosity. Despite thorough inspections upon receiving parts form vendors, porosity can, and often does appear below the surface after parts are machined. As such, a thorough understanding of how porosity effects leakage rates in their parts became essential in order to keep uphold the quality of manufactured parts and more accurately quantify their performance with respect to the standard. The Leakseekers were tasked with designing, manufacturing, and implementing a test rig capable of two things, namely isolating leakage to just the O-Ring - Seal interface, and accurately measuring any leakage past this interface. The information provided by the rig would effectively allow Magseal to more precisely determine the allowable limits of porosity on surfaces of interest, and in so-doing limit the amount of parts discarded due to a broad spectrum that determines whether a part fails inspection or not. Through the use of Financial Analysis, Engineering Analysis and tools like QDF, the team developed a modular design that, with the use of different adapters for different seals, could test a wide range of Magseal products. For optimal utility, the rig was designed with the capability of running 100 hour tests and adapting to multiple seal sizes. Heat, insulation, and pressure sub-systems were also used to ensure that the desired test parameters remained constant throughout the course of a test. An Arduino breadboard was programmed to control and regulate temperatures while an analog pressure system was employed to ensure the desired pressure. In addition to the rig, test and operation procedures, a maintenance manual, electrical system wiring diagrams, a pressure system diagram, and all final assembly CAD part and drawing files were given to the sponsor as deliverables

Industrial Air Pollution Monitoring System Based on Wireless Sensor Networks

Environmental conditions have a major impact on our well-being, comfort and productivity. Present state of the air quality control in almost all manufacturing industries in our country is based on taking samples one or few times a day, which means that there is no information about time distribution of polluted materials intensity during day. This paper proposes an industrial air pollution monitoring system based on wireless sensor network system that enables sensor data to be delivered within time constraints so that appropriate observations can be made or actions taken. Obtaining these accurate real-time results in-situ allows regulatory agency to take necessary action whenever pollution occurs. The analysis focuses on six substances, known as criteria air pollutants – ozone, particulate matter, sulphur oxides, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and lead. The sensors self-organize themselves in a radio network using a routing algorithm, monitor the area to measure the gas levels in air and transmit the data to a central node, sometimes called a pollution server or base station (interfaced with coordinator), or sink node, that collects the data from all of the sensors. With the results from the data acquisition system in hand, the regulatory agent need to implement a number of decisions based on the final statistics. The data obtained from the experiments were analysed in real-time analysis and the results from two sensor nodes taken for a 24 hours period were promising. The usage of this system will reduce human health effects of industrial air pollutants and potential damage to other aspects of the environment

Utilising a fieldbus protocol in a water quality monitoring system

This thesis presents a new water quality monitoring system developed at the University of Durham in conjunction with Partech Instruments Ltd. The system uses a fieldbus protocol to create an open, distributed control network, replacing the dedicated products currently offered. Echelon LonWorks has been used to create three nodes: a suspended solids sensor, a general-purpose interactive monitoring tool, and a universal relay setpoint module. When connected, these nodes provide a means of activating relays when the suspended solids level reaches a definable level, while providing a numerical display for the operator. The sensor may be calibrated for a number of different applications. The sensor uses infra-a-red light to monitor the light absorption and 90 scatter within the solution. By dynamically adjusting the intensity of the emitted light, the sensor is able to increase its range over conventional devices. Signal processing, linearization and calibration operations are carried out within the sensor software. The final measurement is communicated as a LonWorks network variable, allowing the sensor to be treated as an interoperable device. Several third-party products have been connected to the network and a high degree of interoperability demonstrated. Three network management software packages have been investigated, and their suitability assessed. The final prototype system shows the power, flexibility and cost-saving that a fieldbus protocol can provide in an industrial control environment

A low-cost wireless temperature sensor: evaluation for use in environmental applications

With a wide range of applications benefiting from dense network air temperature observations but with limitations of costs, existing siting guidelines and risk of damage to sensors, new methods are required to gain a high resolution understanding of the spatio-temporal patterns of urban meteorological phenomena such as the urban heat island or precision farming needs. With the launch of a new generation of low cost sensors it is possible to deploy a network to monitor air temperature at finer spatial resolutions. Here we investigate the Aginova Sentinel Micro (ASM) sensor with a bespoke radiation shield (together < US$150) which can provide secure near-real-time air temperature data to a server utilising existing (or user deployed) Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) networks. This makes it ideally suited for deployment where wireless communications readily exist, notably urban areas. Assessment of the performance of the ASM relative to traceable standards in a water bath and atmospheric chamber show it to have good measurement accuracy with mean errors < ± 0.22 °C between -25 and 30 °C, with a time constant in ambient air of 110 ± 15 s. Subsequent field tests of it within the bespoke shield also had excellent performance (root-mean-square error = 0.13 °C) over a range of meteorological conditions relative to a traceable operational UK Met Office platinum resistance thermometer. These results indicate that the ASM and bespoke shield are more than fit-for-purpose for dense network deployment in urban areas at relatively low cost compared to existing observation techniques

Human factors issues associated with the use of speech technology in the cockpit

The human factors issues associated with the use of voice technology in the cockpit are summarized. The formulation of the LHX avionics suite is described and the allocation of tasks to voice in the cockpit is discussed. State-of-the-art speech recognition technology is reviewed. Finally, a questionnaire designed to tap pilot opinions concerning the allocation of tasks to voice input and output in the cockpit is presented. This questionnaire was designed to be administered to operational AH-1G Cobra gunship pilots. Half of the questionnaire deals specifically with the AH-1G cockpit and the types of tasks pilots would like to have performed by voice in this existing rotorcraft. The remaining portion of the questionnaire deals with an undefined rotorcraft of the future and is aimed at determining what types of tasks these pilots would like to have performed by voice technology if anything was possible, i.e. if there were no technological constraints

A Prototype of a Decision Support System for River Basin Water Quality Management in Central and Eastern Europe

This Working Paper documents the implementation of a prototype of a Decision Support System (DSS) for regional water quality management applied to a case study of the Nitra River in Slovakia. With the goals of flexibility and simplicity in mind, two different approaches and tools have been implemented and tested. First, the object-oriented development tool ORVAN was used for fast prototyping of the mathematical programming model and for scenario analysis. Second, a problem-specific generator was implemented to generate various single criterion and multiple criteria optimization problems useful in examining the water quality problem. The resulting mixed-integer optimization problems were solved by the MOMIP package. Provided in the paper are the following: a complete formulation of the mathematical model, a detailed discussion of the data used, documentation of the developed software, an overview of interesting results, and recommendations for future work. Since only preliminary data were available at the time of performing the reported research, results are given merely as illustration of the methodology and software and should not he considered policy recommendations. For the latter task a verified data set and water quality model will be required