SENSORS: Collaborative Research: Self-configuring In Situ Wireless Sensor Networks For Prescribed Fire Management

University Of Montana, Missoula MT

Investigators

Abstract

Abstract for "SENSORS: Collaborative Research: Self-configuring In Situ Wireless Sensor Networks For Prescribed Fire Management": Wireless sensor networks offer exciting new technology with the potential to revolutionize the critical process of fire management in forests and public lands. At present, wildland fire management is limited by the coarse granularity of the collected weather data received through the portable belt weather kits worn by firefighters or through the sparsely scattered remote weather stations placed in forests. Since weather is the most critical factor affecting fire behavior and firefighter safety, then the deployment of fire weather sensor networks offers the prospect of fine-granularity weather data that can vastly improve decision-making and safety in the fire management process. This project focuses on solving the research challenges in designing, deploying, and testing a self-configuring wireless fire weather sensor network to support fire management in prescribed fire burns. Reliability, energy efficiency, and connectivity in rugged terrain and tree cover pose key challenges. Human interface requirements like real-time access, localization, and dynamic reprogramming of sensor nodes add complexity to the problem. Specific research objectives include: design and evaluation of self-configuring wireless systems that are low maintenance, adaptive and automatically self-organizing in terms of their network routing; analysis of fault tolerant techniques like multipath routing to facilitate persistent firefighter access to in situ sensor readings in rugged terrain; testing of sustained low power operation through transmit power control, time-synchronized duty cycles, and energy harvesting techniques such as solar power; and development of software that supports remote dynamic reprogramming of in situ sensor nodes. The deployment and testing sequence progresses from a series of laboratory and on-campus experiments to a prescribed fire at a partner experimental forest. The goals of this research project in terms of broader societal impact include the improvement of decision-making and safety in the management of prescribed wildland fires, the development of tools to enable real-time fire monitoring in rugged terrain, the generation of scientific datasets to improve forecasting of wildland fire behavior, the integration of research results into the curricula of university courses, and increased public understanding of fire behavior in wildlands through the release of research results via the Web. This research effort arises from a partnership between the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Montana. The group's collective expertise in computer science, electrical engineering, forestry, and fire intelligence promotes the spirit of collaborative, multidisciplinary research in a real-world setting, enhancing the creativity of students and faculty alike.