Harvard Sensor Networks Lab

This interdisciplinary project is investigating the use of wireless sensor networks for monitoring eruptions of active and hazardous volcanoes. Wireless sensor networks have the potential to greatly enhance our understanding of volcanic activity. The low cost, size, and power requirements of wireless sensor networks have a tremendous advantage over existing instrumentation used in volcanic field studies. This technology will permit sensor arrays with greater spatial resolution and larger apertures than existing wired monitoring stations.

We have deployed three wireless sensor networks on active volcanoes. Our initial deployment at Tungurahua volcano, Ecuador, in July 2004 served as a proof-of-concept and consisted of a small array of wireless nodes capturing continuous infrasound data. Our second deployment at Reventador volcano, Ecuador, in July/August 2005 consisted of 16 nodes deployed over a 3 km aperture on the upper flanks of the volcano, and measured both seismic and infrasonic signals with high resolution (24 bits per channel at 100 Hz). Our third deployment at Tungurahua in August 2007 tested the [[Lance]] utility-driven data collection system that we developed to enhance data fidelity.

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Our volcano monitoring sensor network architecture.

Deployment details

Volcán Tungurahua deployment, August 2007:

• See the Lance project pages for more details about this deployment.
• Lance paper in Sensys 2008
• Deployment photographs

Volcán Reventador deployment, July/August 2005:

• Network World article -- Note there are some technical inaccuracies in this article, as we were not contacted to verify its correctness
• Invited talk at USENIX 2006, Boston, MA (June 1 2006).
• Reventador deployment report (August 2005)
• Deployment photographs
• Report from Jonathan Lees

Volcán Tungurahua deployment, July 2004:

• Web page with more complete details on Tungurahua expedition
• Tungurahua deployment report (July 2004)
• Deployment photographs

Wireless seismic and acoustic sensor node.

Software and hardware

We have made a public release of the software and hardware design used in our deployment at Reventador in August 2005. The software is designed for TinyOS 1.1.13 and TMote Sky sensor nodes. The hardware design includes schematics and Gerber files for our custom four-channel, 24-bit ADC sensorboard for the TMote Sky.

• Software: volcano2005-harvard-release.tar.gz (788KB, release 3-November-2006)
• Hardware: volcanoboard-release.tar.gz (664KB, release 3-November-2006)

Data release

We have made a public release of the raw seismic and acoustic signals collected by our network during the August 2005 Reventador deployment. Note that this data set only includes signals from August 11-19, 2005 which were properly time rectified as explained in our OSDI'06 paper.

• August 2005 Reventador data

People

Faculty:

• Prof. Matt Welsh, Harvard University
• Prof. Jeff Johnson, New Mexico Tech
• Prof. Jonathan Lees, UNC

Students and Staff:

• Geoff Werner-Allen, Harvard University
• Konrad Lorincz, Harvard University
• Mario Ruiz, UNC and IG-EPN
• Omar Marcillo, NMT and IG-EPN