Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TEMBO Africa (Transformative Environmental Monitoring to Boost Observations in Africa)
Période du rapport: 2023-02-01 au 2024-07-31
Amongst TEMBO’s objectives is to establish innovative operational sensing methods at a fraction (10%) of the costs compared to traditional methods. With “costs” we here refer to all costs related to the deployment, maintenance, and use of a sensing method. A 90% reduction in costs means that more is needed than just offering a cheap piece of hardware. In fact, TEMBO wishes to provide state-of-the-art measurements, even with these large reductions of costs.
The reduction of 90% may be reached for instance through the following means:
• come up with innovative sensing solutions that use different variables, different instruments, or re-purpose existing sensors, originally meant for other purposes.
• introducing low complexity hardware solutions, with easy to replace parts, that can be maintained as much as possible locally.
• establishment of local enterprises that can uptake and sell methods locally (requires the former 3 points).
In our work package, new sensing solutions are developed for surface water observations. These include:
• A low-cost low-complexity camera setup based on off-the-shelf hardware components in the Raspberry Pi ecosystem, to be used for image-based observations of surface water variables (water level and flows within this project but may be extended in other projects). ptBox or DischargeKeeper Light (DKL), developed by subcontractor of SEBA, Photrack AG.
• In addition, two full-size camera-based discharge systems DischargeKeeper (DK), developed by subcontractor of SEBA, Photrack AG to be installed on two sites in Zambia and Ghana and provide the users with continuous water level, flow velocity and discharge measuring data.
In this report, we briefly describe the sensing solutions, and demonstrate first uses of the methods over target sites. We also describe the two sites on which we benchmark the different sensing solutions DKL and DK.
The reduction of 90% may be reached for instance through the following means:
• come up with innovative sensing solutions that use different variables, different instruments, or re-purpose existing sensors, originally meant for other purposes.
• introducing low complexity hardware solutions, with easy to replace parts, that can be maintained as much as possible locally.
• establishment of local enterprises that can uptake and sell methods locally (requires the former 3 points).
In our work package, new sensing solutions are developed for surface water observations. These include:
• A low-cost low-complexity camera setup based on off-the-shelf hardware components in the Raspberry Pi ecosystem, to be used for image-based observations of surface water variables (water level and flows within this project but may be extended in other projects). ptBox or DischargeKeeper Light (DKL), developed by subcontractor of SEBA, Photrack AG.
• In addition, two full-size camera-based discharge systems DischargeKeeper (DK), developed by subcontractor of SEBA, Photrack AG to be installed on two sites in Zambia and Ghana and provide the users with continuous water level, flow velocity and discharge measuring data.
In this report, we briefly describe the sensing solutions, and demonstrate first uses of the methods over target sites. We also describe the two sites on which we benchmark the different sensing solutions DKL and DK.
The DK and DKL were installed on the same measuring site in Zambia (Lunsemfwa) and Ghana (Chache) (see figures 1, 2, and 3; attached). Both DK and DKL are image-based flow measurement systems, which optically measure the water level and the surface velocity using IP cameras. To obtain the surface velocity profile, different methods are implemented, the Surface Structure Image Velocimetry (SSIV) and Space Time Image Velocimetry (STIV).
The DischargeKeeper is a hardware and software solution that can be acquired by clients. With the aim of reducing the cost of the DischargeKeeper, the software which runs inside was re-compiled and made ready to run in the “ptBox”, creating the DischargeKeeper Light.
The ptBox is a camera-based system which uses a Raspberry Pi, its main components are a camera, a power management unit and a modem. It can be used for any purpose where it is needed to have a camera recording and processing on-site. The DKL is a ptBox which contains the DK software inside. While the software is exactly the same in both systems, the DKL is currently missing some of capabilities of the DK like options to add external water level sensors (ptBox measures the water level optically) or external outputs (eg. 4-20mA, modbus, etc.) and the image quality is not as good as the one from the DK. The main benefit of the DKL is the significant reduction of the total costs.
The DischargeKeeper is a hardware and software solution that can be acquired by clients. With the aim of reducing the cost of the DischargeKeeper, the software which runs inside was re-compiled and made ready to run in the “ptBox”, creating the DischargeKeeper Light.
The ptBox is a camera-based system which uses a Raspberry Pi, its main components are a camera, a power management unit and a modem. It can be used for any purpose where it is needed to have a camera recording and processing on-site. The DKL is a ptBox which contains the DK software inside. While the software is exactly the same in both systems, the DKL is currently missing some of capabilities of the DK like options to add external water level sensors (ptBox measures the water level optically) or external outputs (eg. 4-20mA, modbus, etc.) and the image quality is not as good as the one from the DK. The main benefit of the DKL is the significant reduction of the total costs.
The two systems DK and DKL installed at the stations in Zambia and Ghana are working stable now and provide reliable quantitative monitoring (measured data of water level, flow velocity and discharge). Furthermore, the installed measuring systems provide the users with proof images at day and night with time stamp showing the measured parameters and the velocity vectors. Some images are attached at the end of the periodic report (see figures 4, 5, 6, and 7; attached).