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FORTE: An Open-Source System for Cost-Effective and Scalable Environmental Monitoring

Zoe Pfister, Michael Vierhauser, Alzbeta Medvedova, Marie Schroeder, Markus Rampp, Adrian Kronenberg, Albin Hammerle, Georg Wohlfahrt, Alexandra Jäger, Ruth Breu, Alois Simon

TL;DR

FORTE addresses the need for cost-effective, scalable forest monitoring under climatic stress by delivering an open-source WSN-based platform paired with a data infrastructure. The approach deploys a Central Unit and modular Satellites using ESP32 devices with ESP-NOW for in-field communication and LTE-M backhaul, supported by a Backend+Frontend for validation, storage, and visualization. The contributions include a complete architecture, prototype field deployments, and openly shared source code, hardware designs, and documentation; evaluations in multi-month forest field tests show favorable energy efficiency and data quality. This work enables broader adoption of ecological monitoring and can be extended to climate, air quality, and other environmental sensing domains.

Abstract

Forests are an essential part of our biosphere, regulating climate, acting as a sink for greenhouse gases, and providing numerous other ecosystem services. However, they are negatively impacted by climatic stressors such as drought or heat waves. In this paper, we introduce FORTE, an open-source system for environmental monitoring with the aim of understanding how forests react to such stressors. It consists of two key components: (1) a wireless sensor network (WSN) deployed in the forest for data collection, and (2) a Data Infrastructure for data processing, storage, and visualization. The WSN contains a Central Unit capable of transmitting data to the Data Infrastructure via LTE-M and several spatially independent Satellites that collect data over large areas and transmit them wirelessly to the Central Unit. Our prototype deployments show that our solution is cost-effective compared to commercial solutions, energy-efficient with sensor nodes lasting for several months on a single charge, and reliable in terms of data quality. FORTE's flexible architecture makes it suitable for a wide range of environmental monitoring applications beyond forest monitoring. The contributions of this paper are three-fold. First, we describe the high-level requirements necessary for developing an environmental monitoring system. Second, we present an architecture and prototype implementation of the requirements by introducing our FORTE platform and demonstrating its effectiveness through multiple field tests. Lastly, we provide source code, documentation, and hardware design artifacts as part of our open-source repository.

FORTE: An Open-Source System for Cost-Effective and Scalable Environmental Monitoring

TL;DR

FORTE addresses the need for cost-effective, scalable forest monitoring under climatic stress by delivering an open-source WSN-based platform paired with a data infrastructure. The approach deploys a Central Unit and modular Satellites using ESP32 devices with ESP-NOW for in-field communication and LTE-M backhaul, supported by a Backend+Frontend for validation, storage, and visualization. The contributions include a complete architecture, prototype field deployments, and openly shared source code, hardware designs, and documentation; evaluations in multi-month forest field tests show favorable energy efficiency and data quality. This work enables broader adoption of ecological monitoring and can be extended to climate, air quality, and other environmental sensing domains.

Abstract

Forests are an essential part of our biosphere, regulating climate, acting as a sink for greenhouse gases, and providing numerous other ecosystem services. However, they are negatively impacted by climatic stressors such as drought or heat waves. In this paper, we introduce FORTE, an open-source system for environmental monitoring with the aim of understanding how forests react to such stressors. It consists of two key components: (1) a wireless sensor network (WSN) deployed in the forest for data collection, and (2) a Data Infrastructure for data processing, storage, and visualization. The WSN contains a Central Unit capable of transmitting data to the Data Infrastructure via LTE-M and several spatially independent Satellites that collect data over large areas and transmit them wirelessly to the Central Unit. Our prototype deployments show that our solution is cost-effective compared to commercial solutions, energy-efficient with sensor nodes lasting for several months on a single charge, and reliable in terms of data quality. FORTE's flexible architecture makes it suitable for a wide range of environmental monitoring applications beyond forest monitoring. The contributions of this paper are three-fold. First, we describe the high-level requirements necessary for developing an environmental monitoring system. Second, we present an architecture and prototype implementation of the requirements by introducing our FORTE platform and demonstrating its effectiveness through multiple field tests. Lastly, we provide source code, documentation, and hardware design artifacts as part of our open-source repository.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 13 sections, 4 figures, 3 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Related Work
  3. Materials and Methods
  4. Method
  5. Requirements
  6. The FORTE System
  7. Architecture
  8. Demonstrator Setup
  9. Evaluation
  10. Cost and Energy Efficiency
  11. Data Comparison and Package Loss
  12. Discussion
  13. Conclusion / Future Work

Figures (4)

  • Figure 1: High-Level Architecture Overview of the FORTE System.
  • Figure 2: High-level Overview of the Demonstrator System.
  • Figure 3: Image of a Central Unit (left) and a Satellite (right) of the Demonstrator.
  • Figure 4: Mean radial growth of all the examined spruces (top) and larches (bottom) in the phase of parallel measurements using point and band dendrometers, as well precipitation time series. Shown are averaged values per tree species and measuring device.