Proceedings of the 2020 Mississippi Water Resources Conference

Year: 2020 Authors: Fisher D.K.

Information is needed in order to study, monitor, and understand any process or event. Advances in electronic technologies, software, and communications infrastructures have resulted in a variety of new and inexpensive monitoring capabilities for research and production applications. A new generation of microcontrollers offers high-speed, low-voltage, energy-efficient, 32-bit operation, and supports programming in multiple languages (C/C++, Python). The increasing variety of solid-state sensors (environmental, multispectral) and auxiliary components (data storage, GPS/RTK) enables development of unique automated sensing, monitoring, and control systems. Remote data communications are enhanced via communications (LoRa wireless, LTE Cat-M1 cellular) networks, and integration with internet-based services allows rapid data transfer and always-available access to and sharing of data. These emerging technologies are enabled by application of open-source hardware and software, which offer advanced tools and capabilities and are freely available for anyone to use, develop, and modify. Open-source hardware and software options will be discussed, and examples of monitoring systems that have been developed will be presented to demonstrate the accessibility and usefulness of these development tools.