2009 Third International Symposium on Intelligent Information Technology Application Workshops
Forest Monitoring Application Systems Based on Wireless Sensor Networks
Huanqi Tao
College of Electronics and Information Engineering
Wuhan University of Science and Engineering
Wuhan, China
taohq@163.com,
Abstract–This paper illustrates a kind of forest monitoring
system solution of wireless sensor networks based on ZigBee in
order to improve the insufficiency of the existing monitoring
ways and introduces wireless sensor networks technology.
Through the comprehensive analysis of three respects of
network topology, energy saving as well as being stable and
reliable, this paper brings forward the hardware design of
sensor network node and network protocols suitable for forest
monitoring .The designed system can conduct effective
monitoring of forest environment.
Keywords–monitoring; wireless sensor; topology structure;
hardware design; network protocol
ĉ. INTRODUCTION
The value and importance of forest not only shows
providing the material basis for human life, but also plays an
irreplaceable role in improving and regulating the
temperature of the atmospheric environment. It is not only
an important task to promote the construction of modern
forestry to strengthen monitoring of forest protection and
minimize forest losses caused by disasters, but also the
necessary requirement to protect forest ecological
environment and ensure fast and good development of
economy and society [1]. Therefore, the establishment of the
real-time forest environment monitoring system has very
important value and is meaningful.
It means a lot of difficulties in monitoring because of the
specificity and differences of forest environment, such as
high mountains, deep valley and wide range . Currently,
there are mainly two monitoring ways: one is manual
sampling with portable monitoring equipment, and the other
is integrated monitoring with satellite remote sensing
technology[2]. The former way can not be used on
long-range real-time monitoring of environmental parameter,
in particular in the dangerous areas where human being can
not reach with the problems of limited monitoring range,
long-term period, labor-intensive, poor pertinence, and slow
data collection. The latter way is able to be used to solve the
problems above, but it only can offer profile information of
appearance due to the requirements of distance and
resolution, and the shortcoming of the data not precise
enough and deficiency of parameter. Therefore, the two
methods mentioned above can not meet the requirements of
conducting full range of remote monitoring in the forest
environment where the situation is severe and condition is
complicated.
978-0-7695-3860-0/09 $26.00 © 2009 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/IITAW.2009.66
Heng Zhang
College of Electronics and Information Engineering
Wuhan University of Science and Engineering
Wuhan, China
462345965@qq.com
The forest environment monitoring system based on
wireless sensor networks is the specific application of
wireless sensor networks in the area of remote
environmental monitoring. Compared with the existing
monitoring system, it has the advantage of low labor costs,
wide monitoring distribution, data accuracy, and little
impact on forest ecology and so on. Environmental
monitoring in the forest has broad application prospects.
Ċ. WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS AND
TOPOLOGY
Wireless sensor networks (WSN) is still in the prelimi-
nary stage of research and application. WSN research
involves a lot of technical content, including a variety of
application supporting technologies such as the
micro-sensors, embedded systems, distributed
communications, wireless communications, data fusion,
network protocols, network security and operating system
[3]. Wireless sensor networks is composed of a large
number of low-cost micro-sensor nodes deployed in the
monitoring region and the multi-hop network of
self-organizing system formed through wireless
communication. It aims at collaborating, collecting and
processing the information of perceived object and sends the
information to observers. The basic node sensor network
consists of dedicated sensors with small size, low cost, data
processing, wireless communications and a high degree of
collaboration [4]. Wireless sensor networks system typically
includes three levels of sensor nodes, aggregation nodes and
the management nodes. A large number of sensor nodes
which can be spread through the aircraft, artificial planting
and rocket catapults and other ways are deployed in the
region or in the vicinity of monitoring [5].
There are three wireless sensor networks topological
structures supported by the ZigBee agreement: star-shaped,
cluster type, and mesh type. As shown in Figure 1 [6]. There
can be a number of links for network structure from the
source node to the destination node, and the establishment
of these links is dynamic and dynamic maintenance. When
there are problems in links, ZigBee can find another link to
maintain communications and improve reliability. In the
mesh structure with multi-hop, the communications power
consumption of each node can be greatly reduced, which no
doubt has great appeal for wireless sensor networks with the
special requirements of power saving. In addition, the mesh
structure of the network can also make up more complex
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star-type cluster-type
mesh-type
Figure 1. Network topology of supported by ZigBee
network, with greater routing depth and network node size.
The distance between each network node can be extended to
several hundred meters, even a few kilometers from the
standard 75 meters. Thus, the wireless sensor networks with
mesh structure are appropriate in a wide range of enviro-
nmental monitoring.
ċ. FOREST EMVIRONMENTAL MONITORING
SYSTEM ARCHITECURE
The wireless sensor networks technology can be used
effectively for the remote monitoring of forests or grassland
pasture vegetation, particularly suitable for the dangerous
areas such as the long-term unmanned or uninhabited high
mountain.
According to the specificity of the forest environment
and the specific analysis, the system structure, topology,
node structure, hardware and software working environment,
network protocol and positioning mechanism of the wireless
sensor networks applied to forest environmental monitoring,
have to meet the requirements of environmental monitoring
of forest. In the monitoring process of the forest
environment, the relevant information that is offered by a
large number of sensor nodes in the random distribution in
the region is sent timely to the coordinator node through the
routing. Coordinator node feeds data to the management
node, namely, manual monitoring center or automatic
control station through the optical fiber, the internet or
launch base stations and satellite.
This paper illustrates wireless sensor networks system
design proposal supported by ZigBee via the example of the
communications of between a group of ZigBee sensor nodes
as well as coordinator node and control center network
through Ethernet in the forest environmental monitoring
system. System Architecture as Shown in Figure 2.
The working principle is: the ZigBee module is
embedded into specific sensors by system, as a node of
wireless sensor networks. When finding abnormal
perceptual changes - such as the case of fire, smoke signal
sensors monitor such changes, then immediately interrupt it
to activate the node chip. Chip input into the data collection
process sends out data packets through the ZigBee wireless
transceiver modules when data collection is finished. As the
core of the system, ZigBee Coordinator is responsible for
the management of the entire network and the transmitting
228
Wireless Sensor
Networks
Ethernet
Control
Center
Coordinator
Sensor Node Node
Figure 2. Network structure
of data and sends as well as receives module data through
ZigBee. The remote monitoring of environmental site is
realized through the necessary processing and analysis of
the received data by the embedded controller and sending
data to the master control center via Ethernet networks.
From the perspective of process of obtaining accurate and
objective data, ZigBee wireless sensor nodes and ZigBee
coordinator node are two most important parts in the entire
system. In order to ensure effective operation of the network,
this system focuses on energy-efficient design and reliability
analysis.
Č. SYSTEM HARDWARE COMPONENTS
A. ZigBee Sensor Node Hardware
Wireless sensor networks nodes belong to a micro-
embedded system, which constitutes the elementary
hardware platform of the wireless sensor networks[7][8][9].
According to the specificity of the monitoring objectives, it
is more important for us to focus on low-cost, low power,
safe and reliable design for sensor nodes applied for forest
environmental monitoring. As the central processor module,
ZigBee wireless sensor nodes consists of sensor modules,
processor modules, wireless communication modules and
components such as power supply modules. Structure
Shown in Figure 3.
Atmel Corporation’s 8-bit microcontroller ATmega128L
is selected as the data processing unit of the processor in the
Figure 4, considering the various aspects of energy
conservation, stability, scalability and ease of system
follow-up upgrade. In comparison with other 8-bit
microcontroller, ATmega128L has more abundant resources
and low energy consumption, as well as a variety of internal
and external interrupt mode. Chip has 128KB of program
memory Flash and static 4KB data memory SRAM
(expandable to 64KB) and 4KB of E2PROM. In addition, it
also has 8-channel 10-bit ADC converter, two 8-bit and two
16-bit timers/counter, UART, SPI, and I2C bus interface.
JTAG debug port provides a convenient connection for the
development and the application. In addition to the usual
mode of operation, it also equips six kinds of different levels
of low-power operating mode for wireless sensor networks,
suitable for energy-saving needs. The wireless
communication module of the nodes adopts TI's ZigBee RF
transceiver chip CC2420, which is the transceiver chip with
a 2.4GHz IEEE802.15.4 compatible wireless communi-
 Power
RF
Supply
ATMEGA Transceiver
CC2420
RS-232
Interface
128L
SENSOR
MCU Interface
JTAG
Debug Port
Figure 3. Sensor-node structure with ZigBee
cation protocol and it can work in the 2.4 the G-band (2.4G
band is an open band) just with few peripheral circuits like
an antenna as well as crystal. CC2420 also provides an SPI
interface with a microcontroller connected for the
completion of tasks of setting, sending and receiving data.
In addition, CC2420 adopts O-QPSK modulation to support
the data transfer rate up to 250Kbps and is able to achieve
the rapid point-to-multipoint network.
B. ZigBee Coordinator Node Hardware
As the center of the entire system, ZigBee coordinator
node is responsible for many tasks in the forest distributed
environmental monitoring system, and plays the role of
coordinating network. Therefore, controller node
Coordinator is high demand in system. The traditional
single-chip appears to be inadequate in some respects. ARM
is the preferred alternative to the traditional single-chip
microcomputer because of its characteristics of
high-performance, low power and low-cost, Therefore,
ARM9 processor STR912FW44X6 is chosen as the master
chip of coordinator node for this scheme. This chip is
particularly suited to the needs of rapid response and
wireless sensor networks in connection with Ethernet due to
its advantages of fast running, large storage space and
convenience in connection with Ethernet.
The ZigBee coordinator node hardware structure is
shown in Figure 4, which is equipped with a series of
expansion function modules to configure and with the core
of STR912FW44X6 chip.
Among them, the master chip STR912FW44X6 is
high-performance embedded chip based on ARM966E-S
core- developed by STMicroelectronics with computing
speeds of up to 96MIPS, and can be conducted by
single-cycle DSP instructions. Chip is integrated with
544kB Flash and 96kB SRAM, as well as MAC, USB,
UART, I2C and CAN communications with the access to
Ethernet. There are 80 GPIO, 8-channel 10-bit ADC,
3-phase motor controller, watchdog programmable timer
and 9 DMA channel.
TI's ZigBee chip RF transceiver CC2420 is also applied
in the wireless transceiver module. In addition, the
coordinator node is connected with existing Ethernet
through the Ethernet Controller STE100P and the system
makes the design of RS232 interface, keyboard and LCD
display in accordance with the actual needs.
č. NETWORK PROTOCOL
The system is required to transmit real-time data
229
RF
FLASH
Transceiver
SRAM
CC2420 ARM9
STE100P
STR912F Display
Ethernet
Controller
W44X6
RS-232 Keyboard
Interface
Figure 4. Coordinator-node structure with ZigBee
accurately in the forest environment monitoring. There is
the problem of node failure for the wireless sensor nodes
because of poor working conditions and limited energy
constraint. Therefore, as for the routing protocol, this
condition should be taken into account that the whole
system can work properly, even if some of the temporary
nodes do not work temporarily. In order to obtain reliable
data transmission, routing protocols should mainly be
considered from the following two aspects: (1) The relia-
bility of communications is ensured with the redundancy
feature of nodes to provide multiple paths. (2) The reliable
estimates mechanism for transmission is established to
ensure the reliability of single-hop transmission.
According to multi-path routing mechanism, the basic
idea ensuring the reliability of communication is: The main
path is created first from the data source node to the cluster
node, and then the multiple paths are established; Data is
transmitted through the main path, and the effectiveness is
maintained through back-up path and low-speed data
transmission. When the main path fails, the sub-optimal path
can be chosen as the new path from the backup.
In addition, in order to extend the network of
energy-saving and life-cycle, the system life cycle can be
extended through reasonable choice of the location and
arrangement of node scheduling algorithm in the wireless
sensor networks application[10]. This paper adopts a
centralized and distributed clustering algorithm: That is,
cluster type is formed in several ways to have a greater
exchange capacity in the network of the early life cycle;
When the energy is about to run out, the appearing of
cluster-type is determined by distributed algorithm. That
means that coordinator node is no longer involved in the
generation of cluster nodes, and its appearing depends on
consultation of the sensor node itself.
Ď. CONCLUSION
Wireless sensor networks has an important impact for
the future development of information technology for its
feature of low-cost, low power consumption, dynamic
routing, automatic network, protocol flexibility, and
convenient application. This paper proposed the use of
ZigBee wireless sensor networks and Ethernet interconnect
specific design methods in the forest monitoring systemˈ
with the aim at the specificity of forest monitoring, on the
basis of discussed the project of wireless sensor applications.
It will is helpful to the study and exploration in the
environmental monitoring and promotes more application
and development of wireless sensor networks technology
further.
ď. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported by the Science and Technology
Innovation Foundation of Hubei Province Department of
Education(No:2004J001), and was guided by the expert
group of the IITA careful. The authors would like to thank
them for their help, and more thanks here all members of the
project team.
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