Design and deployment of a WSN for water turbidity monitoring in fish farms

Abstract

Fish farms pretend to be the sustainable option to provide fish. The water quality is very important to ensure the fish performance. Thus, the monitoring of the water quality is crucial in order to automatize different process in facilities. In this paper, we present a system to monitor the turbidity in fish farms. First, the sensors and wireless nodes are defined. We use an optical sensor for turbidity monitoring and a Flyport as a node. Then, the topology and operation process are detailed. An extended star is proposed as network topology with a wireless connection between Flyports and the Access Points. Finally, the network performance is tested. The main issue is that in the fish farms there is a harsh environment and it is needed to minimize the number of Access Points employed, but maintaining good network performance. With 5 Flyports sharing one Access Point there is a packet loss rate close to 0.5%. Moreover, the appearance of the windows to visualize the data in the server and the alarms sent are shown. It is possible to select different tank types and tank numbers on the server to see the data. In the alarm message, it is possible to see the type of alarm, the affected tank and the timer of this alarm.