WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORK

LECTURE BY Dr SHABBIR MERCHANT of IIT,BOMBAY,INDIA ,on 27 Feb 2010,at IETE,PUNE.
The lecture was held at GLOBALHALL,of IETE,Pune,Centre.
Dr Merchant was awarded the SVC AIYAA MEMORIAL AWARD,a very PRESTIGIOUS AWARD, of IETE,at the Gracious hands of Dr Anil S Tavildar,Fellow,IETE,and Principal of VIIT,Pune.
Dr Mecrhant described two important schemes which are developed by himself with his other colleagues including Dr U B Desai and his students at IIT,Bombay.
1. Collecting Data, from Grape farms,Near Nasik,and transmittimng in Multiple Hop Mobile Network, to nearest centre. Data analysis is done at IIT,Bomaby.
2.He also briefed about novel scheme to warn in advance,about Landslide enroute of prestigeous Konkan Railway. In this project they have successfuly demonstrated,in a model studies in Laboratory,that large number of strain gage based sensors are to be installed on the rocks, enroute. Each sensor would communicate the status of rock health,say tension,via a a comunication device to nearest mobile set. This in turn is connected in a Hop to centrally placed mobile communication system. Which in turn will hop to large,and remotely placed communication system and hence to a central analysing center,where data would get analised. This would be almost very quick  analysis. This ultimately would generate a warning alarm, for a train operator to cotrol speed of his Train and avoid possible calamity. The scheme is yet not implimented by Railways,but is said to be under considerations. Hats off to the group of IIT,BOMBAY,and especially to Dr S MERCHANT and Dr U B DESAI.

My Comments

1. Excellent schemes.
2. This may be useful in Dam Instrumentation, in monitoring Health of a Dam,any type like EARTHEN,MASONORy,CONCRETE-Gravity or Arch or any other type.
3. Could be helpful in Large structures. Like Olympic stadium,High Rise Buildings, Break Waters,Walls Designed to Protect structures from TSUNAMI, Large and long bridges.etc.
4. In each of above systems small portabale sensors with wireless communication devices setup,mobile network established,and then, probably, SATCOM system established, would help get data collected. Many statistical softwares are available and need be developed by IT and Statistics expert  professionals.
5. Need is that of Large support of Govt organisations, Universities, and Big Industries Like Microsoft,Tatas,Relience,IBM, etc.

Prof. M J Khurjekar
VIIT,Pune.