Development of a conductivity sensor as a network node for real time monitoring of water

The river pollution has become a prominently environmental problem to human survival. Thus it is in urgent demand for real-time monitoring of river water. However, traditional methods have some disadvantages such as complicated instrument, high cost and cumbersome operation. Herein, we developed wireless conductivity sensor, which forms a monitoring network system based on ZigBee. The node of the network is powered by battery and connected to coordinator by star network of ZigBee. Conductivity of the water was detected by the sensor node and the data was then sent to the coordinator. After that, the coordinator sent the result to PC through RS458 serial port. Taking advantage of this sensor node, real-time monitoring of the water conductivity was realized with a low relative error of 1% and a loss rate of network package of 0.67%. It can be predicted that, by developing a network of this sensor node, monitoring of a considerable large area of water would be realized.