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Sensor Grid Predicts Imminent Flooding
An anonymous reader writes, "NewScientistTech has an interesting story about a river sensor network that not only measures water depth and flow, but also forms a wireless computing grid to calculate possible flooding scenarios." From the article: "If the river's behavior starts to change, the network uses the data collected to run models and predict what will happen next. If a flood seems likely — because it is rapidly rising and moving quickly — the network can send a wireless warning containing the details... [A researcher said:] 'One end goal would be that people living in areas that flood can install these themselves. They are simple and robust enough to make that possible.'"
Actually, some of this is really interesting technology. A few projects along these lines have been Motes and Smart Dust at Berkeley, and at least one of the groups named their project after the Larsen Localizers from Vernor Vinge's books even though getting that small is a ways out. Gumstix is a bit bigger, so there are a few more options and a bit less work on customization required compared to the smaller devices.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The river swale, also in the Yorkshire dales, used to have a water level up the dale at Muker which rang a bell in Richmond police station about 40 miles downstream so that the police could come out and clear the tourists picnicing on the river banks when there was a cloud burst up on the tops and the sun was still shining in Richmond and the river was about to rapidly rise.
Reading the article I wonder whether this vastly more complex system is really going to work when the river is in full flood and metre sized boulders are scouring out the river bed and banks. I've seen Bluetooth mice having trouble communicating in indoor conditions at a distance of 2 metres.
Still it is not all bad - at least the sheep will get to enjoy their own WiFi connection.