scholarly journals OpenOBS : Open‐source, low‐cost optical backscatter sensors for water quality and sediment‐transport research

Author(s):  
Emily F. Eidam ◽  
Theodore Langhorst ◽  
Evan B. Goldstein ◽  
McKenzie McLean
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Eidam ◽  
Theodore Langhorst ◽  
Evan Goldstein ◽  
McKenzie McLean

Optical backscatter sensors (OBSs) are commonly used to measure the turbidity, or light obscuration, of water in fresh and marine environments and various industrial applications. These turbidity measurements are commonly calibrated to yield total suspended solids (TSS) or suspended sediment concentration (SSC) measurements for water quality, sediment transport, and diverse other research and environmental management applications. Commercial sensors generally cost >$1000-3000. Here we leveraged simple, low-cost microprocessors, electronics, and housing components to design and construct open-source OBSs for <$150 per unit. The circuit relies on a photodiode to sense the backscattered light, two stages of signal amplification, and a high resolution analogue-to-digital convert to read the detected value. The instrument and logger utilize inexpensive, custom-printed circuit boards with through-hole soldering mounts; micro-SD card reader and real-time clock modules; and PVC housings with commercial end caps and epoxy-potted diode emitter and receiver. All parts are readily and publicly available, and minimal experience in soldering and coding is required to build and deploy the sensor. In lab and field tests, standard deviations were comparable to those measured by commercial sensors (~2-3% of the mean for suspended muds and 20-30% for suspended sands). These open-source sensors represent a useful advance in inexpensive sensing technology with broad applications across scientific and environmental management disciplines.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (21) ◽  
pp. 6112
Author(s):  
Rafael Apolinar Bórquez López ◽  
Luis Rafael Martinez Cordova ◽  
Juan Carlos Gil Nuñez ◽  
Jose Reyes Gonzalez Galaviz ◽  
Jose Cuauhtemoc Ibarra Gamez ◽  
...  

Precision aquaculture is a new field that allows farmers to have better control over aquaculture processes, facilitating decision-making and improving efficiency. The implementation and evaluation of a low-cost water-quality monitoring system based on open-source hardware, which is easy to rebuild for scientific applications, is reported in this paper. The proposed system measures temperature, dissolved oxygen, and pH, taking records and sending information through a wireless protocol (ZigBee) to a graphical user interface which can display information numerically and graphically, as well as simultaneously storing the information in a database. These variables are very important for aquaculture, as they have a direct influence on critical culture parameters such as growth and survival. Although it is a low-cost system, it offers good quality data and demonstrates efficiency for its use in precision aquaculture.


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 532-537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bas Wijnen ◽  
G. C. Anzalone ◽  
Joshua M. Pearce

The developing world remains plagued by lack of access to safe drinking water. Although many low-cost methods have been developed to treat contaminated water, low-cost methods for water-quality testing are necessary to determine if these appropriate technologies are needed, effective, and reliable. This paper provides a methodology for the design, development, and technical validation of a low-cost, open-source (OS) water testing platform. A case study is presented where the platform is developed to provide both the colorimetry for biochemical oxygen demand/chemical oxygen demand and nephelometry to measure turbidity using method ISO 7027. This approach resulted in equipment that is as accurate, but costs between 7.5 and 15 times less than current commercially available tools. It is concluded that OS hardware development is a promising solution for the equipment necessary to perform water quality measurements in both developed and developing regions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Murat Gökhan Eskin ◽  
Milad Torabfam ◽  
Meral Yüce ◽  
Hasan Kurt ◽  
Alessandra Cincinelli ◽  
...  

Water quality assessment is vital to identify existing problems and any changes that emerge in water sources over a period of time. Conventional water quality monitoring systems remain to be limited to on-site sample collection and further analysis in environmental laboratories. The progress in Arduino-based low-cost and open-source hardware has paved the way for the development of low-cost, portable, and on-site measuring platforms. In this work, we have assembled an Arduino-based open-source water testing platform out of commercially available sensors and controllers. The water testing system was powered by a 9 V battery and had the capability of measuring water turbidity, acidity, and temperature on-site in real-time. The calibration and validation studies were carried out to assess the measurement capabilities of turbidity and pH sensors in the lab using calibration samples and UV-Vis-NIR absorption spectroscopy. The water quality platform was tested in an artificial lake that is located at Sabanci University Campus (Istanbul, Turkey), which serves as a reservoir for treated wastewaters and rainwater. Untreated wastewater samples were collected from the wastewater treatment station of the university for comparison. The measurements performed on several locations along the coast of the artificial lake were also validated in the laboratory. The water testing platform showed significant potential for miniaturization and portability of such analytical platforms for on-site environmental monitoring.


2020 ◽  
Vol 52 ◽  
pp. 55-61
Author(s):  
Ettore Potente ◽  
Cosimo Cagnazzo ◽  
Alessandro Deodati ◽  
Giuseppe Mastronuzzi

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Fang ◽  
Jonathan Kia-Sheng Phua ◽  
Terrence Chiew ◽  
Daniel De-Liang Loh ◽  
Lincoln Ming Han Liow ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, community care facilities (CCF) were set up as temporary out-of-hospital isolation facilities to contain the surge of cases in Singapore. Confined living spaces within CCFs posed an increased risk of communicable disease spread among residents. OBJECTIVE This inspired our healthcare team managing a CCF operation to design a low-cost communicable disease outbreak surveillance system (CDOSS). METHODS Our CDOSS was designed with the following considerations: (1) comprehensiveness, (2) efficiency through passive reconnoitering from electronic medical record (EMR) data, (3) ability to provide spatiotemporal insights, (4) low-cost and (5) ease of use. We used Python to develop a lightweight application – Python-based Communicable Disease Outbreak Surveillance System (PyDOSS) – that was able perform syndromic surveillance and fever monitoring. With minimal user actions, its data pipeline would generate daily control charts and geospatial heat maps of cases from raw EMR data and logged vital signs. PyDOSS was successfully implemented as part of our CCF workflow. We also simulated a gastroenteritis (GE) outbreak to test the effectiveness of the system. RESULTS PyDOSS was used throughout the entire duration of operation; the output was reviewed daily by senior management. No disease outbreaks were identified during our medical operation. In the simulated GE outbreak, PyDOSS was able to effectively detect an outbreak within 24 hours and provided information about cluster progression which could aid in contact tracing. The code for a stock version of PyDOSS has been made publicly available. CONCLUSIONS PyDOSS is an effective surveillance system which was successfully implemented in a real-life medical operation. With the system developed using open-source technology and the code made freely available, it significantly reduces the cost of developing and operating CDOSS and may be useful for similar temporary medical operations, or in resource-limited settings.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (9) ◽  
pp. 2944
Author(s):  
Benjamin James Ralph ◽  
Marcel Sorger ◽  
Benjamin Schödinger ◽  
Hans-Jörg Schmölzer ◽  
Karin Hartl ◽  
...  

Smart factories are an integral element of the manufacturing infrastructure in the context of the fourth industrial revolution. Nevertheless, there is frequently a deficiency of adequate training facilities for future engineering experts in the academic environment. For this reason, this paper describes the development and implementation of two different layer architectures for the metal processing environment. The first architecture is based on low-cost but resilient devices, allowing interested parties to work with mostly open-source interfaces and standard back-end programming environments. Additionally, one proprietary and two open-source graphical user interfaces (GUIs) were developed. Those interfaces can be adapted front-end as well as back-end, ensuring a holistic comprehension of their capabilities and limits. As a result, a six-layer architecture, from digitization to an interactive project management tool, was designed and implemented in the practical workflow at the academic institution. To take the complexity of thermo-mechanical processing in the metal processing field into account, an alternative layer, connected with the thermo-mechanical treatment simulator Gleeble 3800, was designed. This framework is capable of transferring sensor data with high frequency, enabling data collection for the numerical simulation of complex material behavior under high temperature processing. Finally, the possibility of connecting both systems by using open-source software packages is demonstrated.


Author(s):  
Cris Edward F. Monjardin ◽  
Raheemah A. Gomez ◽  
Marc Noblen G. Dela Cruz ◽  
Dennis Limher R. Capili ◽  
Fibor J. Tan ◽  
...  

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 572
Author(s):  
Mads Jochumsen ◽  
Taha Al Muhammadee Janjua ◽  
Juan Carlos Arceo ◽  
Jimmy Lauber ◽  
Emilie Simoneau Buessinger ◽  
...  

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) have been proven to be useful for stroke rehabilitation, but there are a number of factors that impede the use of this technology in rehabilitation clinics and in home-use, the major factors including the usability and costs of the BCI system. The aims of this study were to develop a cheap 3D-printed wrist exoskeleton that can be controlled by a cheap open source BCI (OpenViBE), and to determine if training with such a setup could induce neural plasticity. Eleven healthy volunteers imagined wrist extensions, which were detected from single-trial electroencephalography (EEG), and in response to this, the wrist exoskeleton replicated the intended movement. Motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) elicited using transcranial magnetic stimulation were measured before, immediately after, and 30 min after BCI training with the exoskeleton. The BCI system had a true positive rate of 86 ± 12% with 1.20 ± 0.57 false detections per minute. Compared to the measurement before the BCI training, the MEPs increased by 35 ± 60% immediately after and 67 ± 60% 30 min after the BCI training. There was no association between the BCI performance and the induction of plasticity. In conclusion, it is possible to detect imaginary movements using an open-source BCI setup and control a cheap 3D-printed exoskeleton that when combined with the BCI can induce neural plasticity. These findings may promote the availability of BCI technology for rehabilitation clinics and home-use. However, the usability must be improved, and further tests are needed with stroke patients.


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