Role of Wireless Sensor Networks in Forest Fire Prevention

Lhcu7ucI, LI cuy8u, L8I buhu8, 80 yIug

Electrical Engineering and Automation Institute, Nanjing Noral University
NJU
Nanjing,China
chenxunli60@yahoo.com.cn
Abstract--Because of the rapid development of sensors,
microprocessors, and network technology, a reliable
technological condition has been provided for our automatic
real-time monitoring of forest fres control. This paper
presents a new type of early warning systems which use a
wireless sensor network to collect the information of forest
fre-prone sections for forest fre, wireless sensor nodes
constitute a "smart" monitoring and control network through
the self-organization and transmits the messages to the control
center through the network, thus we can achieve the remote
control of the forest fre.
Keyword-wireless sensor networks; emedded system;
network comnication.
I. INTRODUCTION
The happenings of Forest Fire toubled ever countr
all along, which caused great losses ever year. Tere was a
message fom China News Agency Beijing which was
reported on Februa 16, 2009. It said that the constat high
temperature and dought ,as well as the precipi
.
tati

n
decreased ,resulted in the high forest fre weather ratmg m
some provinces ad regions of souther China. In addition,
the growth of the moor bums which was brought about by
faers lead to the number of forest fre increased rapidly.
Forest fre causes the timber to reduce te quantity ad
qualit, so that a large number of aimal and plat deaths,
destruction of nature and ecological balance, even small
climate change of the forest. Above all, the prevention of the
occurence of forest fres is signifcat.
Traditionally, fre prediction can only aalyzed and
calculated te predicted weather conditions to get a rough
and rigid fe index value. What's more, it used the
traditional manual inspection metods which can't realize
on-site and real-time monitoring ad control. In recent yeas,
because of the rapid development of sensors,
microprocessors, ad network technology, a reliabe
technological condition has been provided for our automatic
real-time monitoring of forest fres control. This paper
presents a new type of early waring systems which use a
wireless sensor network to collect the inforation of forest
fe-prone sections for forest fre, wireless sensor nodes
constitute a "sma" monitoring ad contol network through
the self-orgaization ad transmits the messages to the
contol center through te network, thus we ca achieve te
remote control of the forest fe. Wireless sensor model as
shown in Figurel.
V-1-4244-4V-/1U/52.UU _2U1U IEEE
Y4-12
Wireless sensor networks have a wide application
prospect and great value in the milita, a

icuture,
environmental monitoring, medical ad health, mtelhgent
transport, building monitoring, industial production contol,
as well as commercial ad oter felds. It's not only one of
the four new technology industries of te global fture, but
the world's three major high-tech industr's fture which
was proposed by te Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) technical review.
It is at the peak period of te construction of
infastructure for China. The safet of the constuction and
monitoring of all kinds of large-scale projects ae long-ter
concered by building design units. Te using of wireless
sensor networks allow the building, bridges and oter
buildings to be able to feel self-conscious of teir condition,
and make the smart architecture which has a sensor network
installation to tell the status of maagement their
inforation automatically, then allow maagement to car
out regula maintenance work in accordace with the
priority. Wit the rapid development in recent yeas of the
related felds such as communication technology, DSP
technology and MEMS sensor technology, wireless sensor
networks has become a important topic which should be
researched ad developed urgently for China's national
economy ad milita defense.
II. PRINCIPLE OF THE SYSTEM
A. Wireless sensor netork intoduction
Wireless sensor network is an intelligent measurement
and control network which is constituted trough the
self-orgaization by a large number of low-cost
micro-sensor nodes that are deployed in the monitoring
region or nearby and with communication, sensing ad
computing power. Te aim is to perceive, collect ad treat
information of perceptual object in te network coverage
aea wit synergy, receive commads and exchange
inforation related to the real world with the control center.
If we say that the Intemet constitutes a inforation world
logically, ad chages the means of communication between
people, then, wireless sensor network is a confuence of
logical information world and objective physical world, and
chages the interaction wit nature. It combines
micro-electronics technology, embedded computing
technology, modem network and wireless communication
technology, distributed inforation processing technolog
ad oter advanced technologies. I also can monitor in real
time, sense and collect the inforation of a variety of
environment or te object to monitor in the network
coverage area, deal with them, send the worked inforation
through wireless and transmit to observer by networks with
multi-hop ad self-orgaization.
Sensor networks have some unique chaacteristics
compaed to other taditional networks. The main features of
sensor networks ae: the large number ad high density of
network nodes, a certain failure rate of te nodes, the limits
of respects such as batter energy, computing power, storage
capacity of the nodes, the quick changes of the topology
stcture, data-centric ad so on. Many universities and
reseach institutions of China focus on the study of sensor
network technology and communication protocol on the
sensor network reseach ad also undertaen a number of
studies on data-awae quer processing technology.
Berkeley campus of Califoria University proposed a
method to reconfgure location of sensor by using te
network connectivity ad developed a sensor operating
system TinyOS. Considering the specifcit of
self-orgaizing network, a special protocol ad technology is
required. Generally speaing, it mainly concentrated in the
respects such as network theory, routing algorithms, access
control, and security maagement.
Te distance between wireless sensor network nodes is
ver short, and te multi-hop wireless communication meas
is norally used to communicate. Sensor networks can be
run under an independent environment, and it also ca be
connect with Interet through the gateway, then the concept
what is "ubiquitous computing" ca be achieved. Te basic
units which constitute the wireless sensor network ae the
nodes which ae made up with the sensor modules, processor
modules, wireless communication modules and the energy
supply modules. When a wireless sensor network is
designed, the sophisticated solutions ca be dawn fom
taditional communication network technology, but the
wireless sensor network also has its own series of features,
mainly embodied in the high density of network nodes, a
huge quatity, the mutual coordination between each node,
the computing power of each node, te limits of storage
capacity and communications badwidt, a vaiet of
application tpes, ad poor working environment. In
addition wireless sensor network nodes commonly used
battery-powered, ad reducing the power consumption to
extend the lifetime has always been a major challenge.
B. Technical platorm of the paper
In the discussion of tis paper, we have te
"self-orgaizing packet tansmission network routing
algoritm" the main line for te technology ad "TinyOS"
for te technology platfor to fher energy-saving design
for wireless sensor networks. TinyOS is specially designed
for wireless sensor network, and its component-based
achitecture can quickly achieve a wide rage of applications.
Te component libra of system includes network protocols,
distibuted services, sensor drivers, as well as data
acquisition tools, ad the unused components will not be
intoduced, then we can achieve te purpose of reducing te
memor requirements. An event-driven model is used in
TinyOS, so tat high-concurency case ca be handled in
ver little space, and the purpose of energy saving also can
be achieved, because CPU do not need to tae te initiative
to looking for te interest case.
III. COMPOSITION OfWIRELESS SENSOR NODES
A. Structure of wireless sensor network
Te basic elements of wireless sensor networks are
nodes, in diferent applications, the design of te sensor
nodes are also different, but their basic structures of the
hardware are the same. Typical stucture of the node is
shown in Figure2, it mainly constitutes by the sensor module
(made up of sensors ad aalog-digital conversion fnction
modules), te processor module (made up of the embedded
system composition, including microprocessors, memor,
etc.), te wireless communication module (made up of radio
fequency modules) and the energy supply module.
,-'
H! ^1R
figurc2 ThcstructurcofwircIcssscnsornctworknodc
Because of the complexity of monitoring the
environment, we need to minimize te size of sensor nodes;
in order to obtain precise inforation, te light, heat, smoke
ad may other high-precision sensors can be installed in
our sensor nodes; in order to extend te effective time of te
deployment in the sensor network and to enhace real-time
sensor network, sensor nodes need the life cycle which is as
[Volume 4] 2U1U2nd InfernofOno LOnference On LOmpufer cngneerng ondechnOOgy Y4-1
long as possible, so sensor node should meet the
requirements such as the small size, high precision, long life
cycle, saving energy ad so on.
B. Sensor module
Each sensor node has one or more sensors, mote ad
batter pack. Sensor is mainly used to detect light or
temperature, or smoke, the responsibilit of mote is dealing
with tese data ad tasmitting tem through networks.
L. Processor module
ATmega128L produced by A TMEL is an 8-bit
microcontroller based on the A VR RISC achitecture using
low-power COMS technology of production. It takes te use
of the dual-bus architecture of Havard inner, ad can
complete fetching and execution of the instruction
simultaneously. When in the use of 16M clock, the speeds
ca be up to 16MIPS. A Tmega128L has more abundat
resources ad low energy consumption: it has a progra
memor (Flash) of 128K in the chip, SRAM (SRAM) of
4K,ad can be extended to EEPROM of 64K ad 4K
outside. I addition, it also has two 8-bit timer / counter ad
two 16-bit extended timer / counter, 8 channels of lO-bit
ADC contoller; two 8-bit pulse width modulator(PWM),
programmable (2-16) PWM with 6 resolution, an
independent watchdog timer and programable-chip
oscillator as well as chip aalog compaator; two
programmable general-purpose serial interface with
asynchronous (USAR T) bufers, a serial peripheral interface
(SPI) which ca r in the host / slave mode and I2C bus
interface; JTAG provides a convenient interface for
debugging ad development. I addition to te noral
operation mode, ATmega128L also has six kinds of diferent
levels of sleep mode; each mode has diferent energy
consumption. Terefore ATmega128L is ver suitable for
low power applications. Wat's more, ATmega128L has a
small-outline, ad ca reduce te size of node. So afer
compaing, the microprocessor used A VR8-bit
single-chip-enhanced which is high-performace, low power
consumption of ATmega128L models, te single-chip has
advantaes for exaple speed, anti-interference ability and
availability of c language programming.
Microprocessor processes te sensor signals received,
ad loads te sensor data coresponding to te sta bit ad
end bit of the data at each fae according to the diferent
input interface of various sensor, then te ID code of
Communication Node is added to the data at each fe, in
succession te microprocessor wakes up communications
nodes or maes communications node into te sleep state in
accordace with received instuction fom the Monitoring
Center to reduce power consumption.
D. Wireless communication module
Te efcient use of energy is the primar designing
goals of wireless sensor networks, in view of tis, the
general passive RF module can not meet te system
requirements, so we chose nRF9E5 of Nordic companies in
Norway, nRF9E5 has advatages such as small size, low
cost, self-powered, ultra high-fequency fring,
ati-interference ability ad so on. Through the value of the
confguration register, three diferent tansmission fequency
433MHzl868Mzl915Mz can be received. It is embedded
8051 compatible microcontroller, RF tansceiver ad
4-chanel lO-bit A / D converter, the most special is
ShockBurst technology (automatic processing of te prefx,
address ad CRC) of Nordic compaies is adopted by
nRF9E5, the realization of low-speed data input, high-speed
data output reduce te system's average power consumption.
IV. LONCLUSION
Wireless sensor network technology is considered one
of the importat technologies which afect te lives of
makind in the fture, ad is being more and more
concered by technicians and scientists, te forest H
prevention is just one exaple of its applications, this
technology ca also be used in such as intelligent
tansportation, environmental detection, alam foods,
monitoring animal habitat, monitoring healt status of
bridges, monitoring te security situation under hole. Its
development ad application will give a profound impact to
various felds of living and produced.
REFERENCES
[IJ Ramanathan R, Radi J. A Brief Overview of Mobile Ad hoc
Networks: Challenges and Directions [JJ. IEEE
Communication Magazine, 2002, 40(5), P 20-22.
[2J Akyildiz I F, Su Weilian, Sankarasubramaniam Y, et al. A
Survey on Sensor Networks [JJ. IEEE Communications Magazine,
2002, 40 (8),102-105.
[3J Tilak S, Abu-Ghazaleh N B, Heinzelman W. A Taxonomy of
Wireless Micro-sensor Network Models [JJ. ACM Mobile
Computing and Communications Review, 2002,6 (2),28-36.
[4J Baojie Ji, stributed Measurement and Control System in
Agricultural Greenhouse Based on Single-Chip Controller
[JJ. Computer Measurement & Control, Vol. 15, No.1, 2007
p73-75.
[5J Ren Fengyuan, Hai Ning, Lin Chuang. Wireless Sensor Network
[JJ.Journal of Software, 2003, 14(7).
[6J Que Dashun, Du Wei, Yue Pengo Research on Transplanting Vi vi
to S3C2410 [JJ. Journal of Wuhan University of Technology,
2007,Vol.29, P47-50.
[7J Cui Li, Ju Hailing, etc. A Review of Wireless Sensor Networks.
Journal of Computer Research and Development, 2005, 42 (1),
PI63-174.
Y4-14 2U1U2nd InfernofOno LOnference On LOmpufer cngneerngond echnOOgy [Volume 4]