SBIR-STTR Award

Situation and Problem: Real-time monitoring of water quality data currently requires costly equipment and involved installation procedures. However, many water quality applications would benefit from an easy-to-install, low-cost monitoring sensor, so that more accurate and up-to-date decision-making data are available. Impacts are expected in public health, pollution amelioration, and agricultural productivity. Purpose: This grant will demonstrate a novel, lower-cost technology for real-time water quality data monitoring and acquisition, to enable much more rapid installation and use of real-time water quality installations. Phase I will show the technology and methods are practical and ready for full-scale development. OBJECTIVES: This project will demonstrate the feasibility of using a new telemetry technology for reporting water quality data. Currently, real-time monitoring of water quality involves expensive, complex installations. The approach to be demonstrated during the grant period will be modular and much lower in cost. The experiments will prove the new technology is practical and cost-effective over a variety of end-user criteria. APPROACH: The grant will begin with technology development at Vortant Technologies and laboratory testing of sensors and data acquisition. When robust results are demonstrated in the laboratory, the proof-of-concept equipment will be taken to nearby lakes and streams, and accurate sensing and data acquisition will be demonstrated in the field. Accuracy will be determined by comparing measured results to standard commercially-available technology

It is currently time consuming and expensive to install water quality monitoring stations to report data on water quality to researchers and monitoring agencies quickly and efficiently. In this project, we will develop the technology to improve the gathering and reporting of such data. The end product after commercialization of the results of this project will be a novel system that provides real-time monitoring at significant savings in cost and complexity. The availability of this technology will enable commercial entities, as well as state, local, and federal agencies charged with monitoring the nation's waters to greatly expand their real-time coverage with little added to their existing budgets, providing both societal and economic benefits. OBJECTIVES: The objective of this project is to create a product to revolutionize the ease, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness of purchasing, installing and using in-situ, real-time water quality monitoring systems, making better water quality data available for a wide variety of users and decision-makers on a real-time basis. Currently, obtaining and installing a real-time monitoring site is complicated and expensive, and requires significant infrastructure, including weather protection and antennas. In this project, we will continue development of an improved telemetry system that overcomes such problems and will demonstrate its use with a variety of custom and commercially-available sensing instruments. APPROACH: With a team including academic researchers, instrument manufacturers, and potential end users, we will refine the requirements of the improved telemetry system to ensure we meet the largest needs of the water quality monitoring community within the scope of the prototype efforts. Using state-of-the-art simulation and design techniques, we will design and implement a prototype version of the system. Based on a series of temporary and longer-term deployments, we will gather data on the efficacy of the approach and initiate customer interest in preparation for moving onto commercialization efforts. PROGRESS: 2011/09 TO 2012/08 OUTPUTS: During the reporting period of the grant, a brainstorming activity was conducted, which involved participation from a wide variety of perspectives, including water quality consultants, instrument manufacturers, university researchers, and companies involved in surface-water amelioration techniques. These sessions identified the major advantages of the subject technology, and helped to define the technical requirements, such as battery life, data reporting parameters, and communication and visualization protocols. Important engineering/technical outputs also were completed during the reporting period. An improved electronics design has been created to address some of the shortcomings observed during earlier development and evaluation. Detailed design of a sophisticated, yet efficient power supply to allow for a wide range of usage scenarios was completed. An architecture for combining the data reception capabilities of our technology as demonstrated in earlier R&D, with commercially-available cellular and Internet infrastructure has also been created. In addition, initial efforts toward environmentally-rugged, long term mechanical enclosures have been initiated. PARTICIPANTS: Philip Schaefer, Vortant Technologies, P.I.; University of North Carolina at Wilmington, subcontractor; Floating Island Southeast, Inc., subcontractor; ISTI, Inc., subcontractor; Turner Designs, Inc., subcontractor. TARGET AUDIENCES: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Not relevant to this project. IMPACT: 2011/09 TO 2012/08 The results of the multidisciplinary brainstorming meetings not only contributed to an improved understanding of the advantages of the subject technology for end users involved with water quality monitoring, but are also being used in subsequent engineering activities to make design decisions such that the prototype product will be optimally directed toward the real-world needs. The receiving station architecture to connect to the Internet will allow the product resulting from this research to be deployed in locations far from the end user, combining the advantages of the wireless telemetry with the unlimited-distance communication capabilities of existing land-based technology.