
IoT Sensors Monitor a 1,400-Kilometer Canal in China - sohkamyung
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/internet/a-massive-iot-sensor-network-keeps-watch-over-a-1400kilometer-canal
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Chaebixi
> Although some sections of the canal had access to a fiber optic internet
> connection, other areas had no access and passed through remote areas with
> spotty or absolutely no cellular network service. As a solution, Yang and
> his team developed the so-called Smart Gateway to receive data continuously
> from local sensors and then transmit it to a cloud server using whatever
> signal was available at the moment. That could include fiber, Ethernet, 2G,
> 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi, or Zigbee.

If you're building such a massive infrastructure project, why not just run
fiber along its length?

~~~
lostcolony
I always wondered about that myself. I've seen people discussing what the best
technology is for monitoring remote oil pipelines, should they use cell
spectrum and ensure every part of the pipe is covered, cell and ensure each
transmitter can connect m2m to relay messages to where coverage is, or some
other tech...and no one suggested "Hey...why don't we just run fiber along the
pipe?" There may have been a good reason that wasn't obvious to me...or it may
have been people legitimately didn't think of it, too enamored by the idea of
connectivity in a "remote" location.

~~~
luhn
I could think of a few potential reasons:

\- Maintenance: It could be very difficult to find and fix a fiber break.
AFAIK, there's no easy way to determine where a break in the fiber is, you
generally end up replacing the entire broken segment, which in this case could
be miles.

\- Reliability: If the fiber breaks, all the upstream sensors go down.
Especially since a fiber break could also mean a pipeline break, you just
handicapped yourself at the most critical time.

\- Cost: Hundreds of miles of fiber, properly shielded from the elements, must
cost a lot. (Of course, getting wireless signal to thousands of sensor
stations would also be pricey, and I can't say how they'd compare.)

~~~
stagger87
If you're interested, optical time-domain reflectometers are used to
characterize fiber cables, including breaks/bends/faults/etc. Pretty standard
and relatively cheap test equipment.

~~~
wlesieutre
I was curious how accurate those are, found a datasheet for the PRO-OBL-201A
($1600, or effectively nothing compared to an oil pipeline). It's a portable
"optical break detector", full blown reflectometers might have more features.

They list the maximum range as 100 Km, with accuracy of +/\- (0.8 m + 0.001% x
Distance). So measuring to a break at maximum range, you'll be within 1.8
meters.

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tristanj
It sure sounds like the definition of what is IoT has changed since the last
time I checked. I always thought IoT was about attaching sensors to objects in
daily life, such as in clothing, appliances, food packages, doors, etc.
Building sensors along a canal to me sounds like a regular surveillance
network.

The project is still innovative though.

~~~
erentz
> It sure sounds like the definition of what is IoT has changed since the last
> time I checked...

It’s almost like some kind of system for supervisory control and data
acquisition...

~~~
ghaff
IoT terminology gets used for a lot of different things, including fairly
traditional SCADA. It does tend to be different in degree than historically--
more sensors, more analysis, more real-time control, but it's certainly
different from wearables, SmartHome, or even the broader set of sensors that
go by things like smart cities.

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ramzyo
Hmm, dubious claim here with the "Smart Gateway"

>> “The Smart Gateway can learn the availability of the connection to the
cloud. After a successful transmission, it will follow that network next time.
Otherwise, it will try another one,” says Zhang.

Considering,

>> Video cameras were spaced every 500 meters along the entire structure.

And,

>> Yang and his team developed the so-called Smart Gateway to receive data
continuously from local sensors and then transmit it to a cloud server using
whatever signal was available at the moment. That could include fiber,
Ethernet, 2G, 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi, or Zigbee.

I'd be interested to see how their network holds up when streaming video to a
gateway via Zigbee or video to the cloud over 2G (or even 3G). Considering the
system is supposed to go into "continuous stream" mode during a natural
disaster or other emergency, I'd guess this is also when the network would
collapse. Oof.

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walshemj
Adding IOT is just shameless pandering for clicks why not add bitcoin to it
:-)

I helped build similar devices (custom S100 based systems) 30 years ago at BHR
group for remotely monitoring experiments at remote sites and using sensors to
monitor pipelines was standard back then.

Wish I had suggested we build our own modems out of BYTE for £30 instead of
paying £300 for answer and £600 for answer originate.

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The_DaveG
It's an interesting project, I really wish that they would have talked more
about how the system has been implemented. As in what system are they using
and how close to "real time" are they getting the data? Those are a HUGE
number of sensors and without even considering how they are getting the
information back to any gateways, it would be a gargantuan task to build
anything out that would be easily digestible my a person in a Control Room.

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Shivetya
I would have thought that with all the effort to build that canal that they
would have wired it all. it would have been a great opportunity to have done
so considering all the effort expended to create the canals and dams.

is there some reason this was not undertaken at the time of construction?

