Deployment and evaluation of a wireless sensor network for methane leak detection

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) have been adopted in various monitoring applications. However, due to the high power consumption of catalytic gas sensors, which enable reliable gas detection, there is a lack of real WSN deployments aimed at the monitoring of combustible gases. This work reports on the evaluation of a WSN deployed in a real operational boiler facility. The WSN consists of nine battery-powered wireless sensor nodes (with an onboard catalytic sensor) controlled by a network coordinator. In this safety critical environment our objective is twofold: (i) guarantee precise and fast sensor response, and (ii) deliver the sensed data from the sensor nodes to the network coordinator safely in case of methane leakage. We first describe the deployment of the WSN and then evaluate the catalytic sensor response under various conditions. Besides, we evaluate the wireless links using the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) and link quality indicator (LQI) metrics. Finally, the experimental results demonstrate that during 5 months of deployment the sensor nodes have been discharged for 22-27%. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.