Sensor Systems For Environmental Monitoring

Stringent legislation is forcing manufacturing industry to be aware of the impact its operations have on the environment, in order to control and reduce the affect of those operations. Increasingly sophisticated equipment is required for this monitoring, and development of that equipment and strategies for its use is a multi-disciplinary field involving chemists, analytical scientists and engineers. This volume is divided into two parts, the first introducing the reader to the various sensor systems and illustrating the advantages and disadvantages those systems have for monitoring programmes, and the second introducing the problems associated with environmental monitoring, and showing how the sensors discussed in the first section can be applied to produce a thorough monitoring programme.

The natural environment is complex and changes continuously at varying paces. Many, like the weather, we notice from day to day. However, patterns and rhythms examined over time give us the bigger picture. These weather statistics become climate and help us build an understanding of the patterns of change over the long term. Real-Time Environmental Monitoring: Sensors and Systems introduces the fundamentals of environmental monitoring, based on electronic sensors, instruments, and systems that allow real-time and long-term data acquisition, data-logging, and telemetry. The book details state-of-the-art technology, using a practical approach, and includes applications to many environmental and ecological systems. In the first part of the book, the author develops a story of how starting with sensors, you can progressively build more complex instruments, leading to entire systems that end with databases and web servers. In the second part, he covers a variety of sensors and systems employed to measure environmental variables in air, water, soils, vegetation canopies, and wildlife observation and tracking. This is an emerging area that is very important to some aspects of environmental assessment and compliance monitoring. Real-time monitoring approaches can facilitate the cost effective collection of data over time and, to some extent, negate the need for sample, collection, handling, and transport to a laboratory, either on-site or off-site. It provides the tools you need to develop, employ, and maintain environmental monitors.

This book covers two most important applications of smart sensors, namely bio-health sensing and environmental monitoring. The approach taken is holistic and covers the complete scope of the subject matter from the principles of the sensing mechanism, through device physics, circuit and system implementation techniques, and energy issues to wireless connectivity solutions. It is written at a level suitable mainly for post-graduate level researchers interested in practical applications. The chapters are independent but complementary to each other, and the book works within the wider perspective of essential smart sensors for the Internet of Things (IoT). This is the second of three books based on the Integrated Smart Sensors research project, which describe the development of innovative devices, circuits, and system-level enabling technologies. The aim of the project was to develop common platforms on which various devices and sensors can be loaded, and to create systems offering significant improvements in information processing speed, energy usage, and size. This book contains substantial reference lists and over 150 figures, introducing the reader to the subject in a tutorial style whilst also addressing state-of-the-art research results, allowing it to be used as a guide for starting researchers.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "UAV Sensors for Environmental Monitoring" that was published in Sensors