Wireless Sensor Networks Applied to Museums' Environmental Monitoring

Monitoring the museum's environment for preventive conservation of art purposes is one major concern to all museums. In order to properly conserve the artwork it is critical to continuously measure some parameters, such as temperature, relative humidity, light and, also, pollutants, either in storage or exhibition rooms. The deployment of a wireless sensor network in a museum can help implementing these measurements in real-time, continuously, and in a much easier and cheap way. In this paper, we present a practical testbed deployed in a museum called Fortaleza Sao Tiago, located in Madeira Island, Portugal. This work is being developed in the context of an ongoing project on museum environmental and structural monitoring using wireless sensor networks. The experimental testbed is described, as well as all the problems identified.