Sensor Hubfederated microclimate monitoring

Sensorhub.org

Cloacina Project, 2010cloacina.org

DIY R&D for Neighborhood-Scale SanitationComposting Greenhouses & Environmental Monitoring

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We’re working to build inexpensive, locally-controlled logistics that re-connect communities to their environment and each other. Over the past 40 years, manufacturers have leveraged networked and computer logistics to coordinate globalized supply chains. Our goal is to build dramatically smaller, cheaper, and easier to use systems that perform the opposite function, coordinating local residents with the productivity of their environment. We’re starting with composting, because composting closes the loop between waste generation and food production. With careful management, compost is the safest way to dispose of the entire organic portion of household waste: food scraps including meat & cooked food, paper, cardboard, and even human excrement. This document, however, focuses on our informa-tion system, its testing and evaluation.

help us out- you don’t have to be a techiehave a compost pile you want to get real hot?

into urban agriculture in Portland, OR?want a login to do research on our data?

want to help us calibrate our gas sensors?email us: info@cloacina.org

Data democracy projects such as DataDyne’s MIP, deployed in Chile as DatAgro, have demon-strated how cell phone text message delivery of environmental and weather news improves farm yields and empowers farm cooperatives. Our system, Sensor Hub, will do more than democratize access to environmental data, it will democratize the production and analysis of data. Sensor Hub’s integration of environmental monitoring, end-user feedback collection, and automated alerts will enable neighbor-hoods to aggregate residents’ diffuse time and interest into coordinated land management strategies. Sensor Hub’s data analysis package and server federation will bring quantitative measures and direct comparison to small-scale, user-driven R&D, inexpensively generating the documentation needed to turn backyard experiments into proven, replicatable systems.

Our goals around composting are to use data collection to promote trust- neighbors know the treat-ment regime of a compost pile, and don’t have to worry about pathogens, parasites, or blights that might be added to the pile. Finished compost can be trusted for use on lawns and gardens without adding unwanted weeds or blights. Automated messaging tells maintainers when compost needs to be added, turned, or watered without constant checkups. As a whole, the system lowers the information barriers to composting and the expertise needed to maintain a high-performance, high temperature system at the neighborhood level. The community will see the direct benefits of reduced waste collec-tion bills and increased soil fertility, and get to participate directly in distributed R&D to spread their ideas.

Best, The Cloacina TeamMathew Lippincott, Molly Danielsson, R.J. Steinert, & Dennison Williams

The Cloacina Project & Sensor Hub

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We’re Doing This Because We’re Gaga for Composting Greenhouses

Greenhouses have the potential to be extremely nutrient and energy efficient, capturing heat, ammo-nia, and CO2 coming off of compost for soil and plant growth. Composting is an aerobic process,

and especially at northern latitudes there is a balance between adding air and losing heat by convec-tion. The New Alchemy Institute composting greenhouse was designed to address this problem by cre-ating a partially closed nutrient cycle. Air inside the greenhouse was exchanged between the compost and a biofilter/ plant beds, exchanging CO2 for oxygen. Despite some difficulties balancing ammonia and heat generation, the greenhouse was able to raise plants and maintain thermophilic composting through a New England winter. Milwaukee’s Growing Power sees improved winter plant growth with simple piles on the inside of their hoophouses, but they are not focused on thermophilic composting.

New Alchemy Composting Greenhouse, 1983-1991

0) Manure is loaded manually1) Hot oxygen-rich air at the top of the greenhouse is blown down into pile.2) Aerated Compost organisms produce CO2.

3) Volitized ammonia and CO2 are blown into biofilter4) Inside the biofilter’s tube ammonia combines with water vapor to form ammonium5) bacteria convert ammonium to nitrite6) bacteria convert nitrite to nitrate7) Plants absorb nitrates and CO2

8) Plants release oxygen to be cycled back to the compost pile9) Coldframes catch heat and extra nitrates from biofilter

The NAI compost-ing greenhouse was not intended for use with human excre-ment. It was filled with horse manure, and at 12’x40’, it could proc-cess up to 100 tons of manure annually.

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Composting Logistics in Temperate Cities

Container Logistics Overview

urbanperi-urban

Container signals it’s full

container reports progress towards pathogen abatement

semi-automated processing center is remotely monitored

pathogen abatement complete, container emptied

compost moved to pile to cure for 6-18 months

agricultural products returned to urban area

finished compost applied to land, enriching soil

Full container moved to local processing center

empty container replaces full container

We like Intermediate Bulk Containers (IBCs) because they correspond to the needs of collection and composting in scale, aeration, transportation, regula-tion, and attachment. (see pg 30)Certified for hazardous waste transport under the UN Convention on the Law Of the Sea (UNCLOS), IBCs come with openings sized for attachements and easy loading/emptying. The 2” drain and optional second top opening can handle aeration and drainage.

Networked SanitationThe difficulties of retaining, schedul-

ing, pumping, and moving excrement led cities like Paris, New York, Balti-more, and others to switch to sewers. Dry sanitation, ecological sanitation, is a logistics problem. Luckily the mod-ern world is great at logistics.

By applying networked management, electronic sensors, and containeriza-tion to the problem of our excrement, we can make dry sanitation far more sanitary, painless, and reasonable than sewer systems. If we can drive down the cost of monitoring both collection containers and compost, mistakes can be minimized and tracked, and exper-tise can be applied remotely. These lessons have already been applied to manufacturing, where the steady pace of the assembly line has been virtual-ized into a just-in-time network of disparate suppliers. An analogous system of sensors, transporters, and performance benchmarks can coordi-nate the sanitization and cycling of our organic matter.

Climate differences, human density, social mores, and endemic diseases all change the composting system design calculus. While composting systems may be superficially divergent, the biota they use are part of the same continuum and the compost they produce shares key characteristics. No specific composting system is best, and through monitoring we can study and recognize the points of unity between systems and hold ourselves account-able to performance-based standards. Decomposition is an ecological activ-ity central to our health, and we must learn to work with it and trust it.

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Static pile in greenhouse (control)

cost: $72.36vol: 1 cu yd2

$72/cu yd2

composting within a green-house seems to be the cheapest method per cubic yard for cli-mates like ours with a cool rainy season, providing two layers of containment to cultural and legal demands for enclosure. We will put up a 10’ by 12’ green-house (½ the size of our final plan) in January & February 2011, testing which containers achieve thermophilic conditions throughout the entire pile. All tests will be on sawdust and manure.

Our goal is to absorb any leachate produced in the compost containers with large wood chunks and chips, and evaporate the leachate back in with forced aeration. If leachate poses a threat to aerobic

conditions it will be drained to a container of wood chips, gravel and sand which will support a variety of wetland plants.

We will be using hardy wetland plants, like water hyacinth, bulrush, vetiver, and sedges, that have become darlings of ecological engineers for their ability to thrive in challenging settings. The oxygen produced by the plants will be exchanged for carbon dioxide produced by decomposers in the compost.

$30 5” Dayton Blower 105 CFM$24 polyethylene duct 3” ID $3/ft 8’ neededfree woodchip bag biofilter$765 new 330 gal IBC Multiway C$225 used 330 gal IBC$5 3” to 2” reducer free free large wood chunks (3”-5”)

$12.36 1”x 2” hardware cloth 24”x 8’$60 1/4” galvanized meshfree large chunks of wood (3”-5”)free mesh or burlap layer prevents small particles from filling in air space at the bottom

$30 5” Dayton Blower 105 CFM$21.48 6’ of plastic duct hose 4” dia. $3.58/ft$1.07 tube clamp$2 3’ of ABS corrugated pipe free woodchip bag biofilter$120 rugged wheelie bin (new)free large chunks of wood (3”-5”)

Composting Greenhouse Prototyping & Testing

Wheelie Bin in greenhouse

cost $175vol: 1/4 yd3

$690/yd3

IBC in greenhouse

cost $284vol: 1 yd3

$284/yd3

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Sensor Management WIth Sensor Hubhere is a graph generated by Flot through a browser interface. Outdoor temperature is respresented across a single day. Users can set the date, range, and number of datapoints for any given time.

Cheap self-calibrating sensors, microcon-trollers, cell phone networks, and server-side

management software are advanced enough to hack together a workable almost-real time open-source monitoring system at a fraction of the cost of closed commercial systems. HOBOlogger and other commercial systems are good for environ-mental monitoring, but we can’t integrate them into our future logistics, or afford to embed their sensors. Open source development allows us to turn mutual interest into mutual aid, attracting developers working in communications, security, and the semantic web to help us build the net-work and analytic tools we need on top of existing platforms. It’s like spreading a frosting of our features onto someone else’s cake, and getting to eat the whole thing.

The biggest hardware problem in monitoring a compost pile is not the electronics, it’s the weath-erproofing. Our prototype sports a rafting dry bag with a project box inside. We have a good work-ing prototype system built on the backs of several robust open frameworks: Our prototype consists of Arduino-based hardware and Drupal-based software. Self calibrating DS18B20 temperature sensors are housed in waterproof PEX piping and wired to an Arduino and ATT C168i GoPhone housed in a dry bag. This hardware connects to the internet using the SMS to e-mail bridge cell carriers provide. The e-mailed data is retrieved, parsed, and inserted into a SQL database at regular intervals by system software. There it is accessed by a R.J. Steinert’s Drupal module of Ward Cunningham’s Sensor Server, as well as the graphing package Flot , so researchers can design plots of data through the web. Dennison Williams has joined the software team to aid in security and project management.

Technical Details on why we built this system on page 9.

Sensors & Software for Environmental Management and Logistics

Future Hardware Revisions:•develop water-resistant CO2 sensor (Dec. 2010)•off-grid solar power (partially developed)•switch cell phone & Arduino to GSM module•switch from dry bag to ventilated box•fabricate permanent sensor housings

Future Software Revisions:•add Flot front-end (in development)•add automated alert system for sensor values•incorporate SMS management notes collection

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closed

open

cat-5 cable

1/2” air hose attachment

shrink tubing filled w/ hot glue sealing joint

teflon tape around threads

.1” 3-wire plug

wire to 4 more temp sensors

5’ of 1/2” PEX piping

DS18B20 breakout board

DS18B20 temp sensor

Waterproof Temperature SensorsHOBO U30 Datalogger DIY (Arduino & cellphone)

HOBO U30 $399HOBO U30 w/ GSM $850

$12 motoC168i (goPhone)$28 Arduino $6.50 one gallon dry bag

year’s service $240-1020 $6 /month + $30 startup

waterproof temp sensorwith 6’ cable model: TMC-50HD $79

costs: Microdaq.com

$3.29 /each DS18B20 temp sensors$0.80 /breakout boards $5 10’ ethernet cable$3 other parts$1 /foot piping

5 sensors & 20 calls/day: $1545

5 sensors & 480 SMS/day:$148

plug & play, full service + development & labor

Electronics Dry BagC168i & Arduino

Sensor LocationsGreenhouse Automation

CO² sensors are placed in the center of the compost and at the fan’s inlet, measuring the exchange of gasses between plants and compost. Blowing air into the compost delivers O² while removing heat and CO².

A controller cycles the fan based on sensor readouts, keeping O² between 9-18% without letting temperatures at the corners of the compost drop below 55º C (131º F).

Temperature measurements, oxygen levels, and fan cycles are sent via text message to a web-based monitor. Monitoring verifies outcomes and allows for operators to be notified when parameters move outside normal ranges or pathogen-killing temperatures aren’t being reached, and allows remote adjustment of the aeration cycle.

CO²

°C

°C

°C

°C°C

°C °C

vs

temperature sensors are placed to measure the far corners of the compost pile and verify pathogen abatement. Verifying the corners means compost doesn’t need to be turned, a process that can exposes workers to hazardous mold spores.

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Finished compost Evaluation:(based on NSF 41 7.1.4)

•Fecal coliform <200 cfu/g•Moisture < 75% by weight•No objectionable odor after removal and after storage in a wet and dry container for 7 days.•If there is significant leachate, it will be tested for coliform levels, BOD5 and pH after a residence time in the artificial wetland.

Handling evaluation:•No contact with unfinished compost is required•good air quality. requiring a mask effects quality of life. low molds, ammonia.• Loading (labor)•Emptying (labor)

What else do you want to know?e-mail us:

info@cloacina.org

Container evaluation:•Even aeration•Corners get hot•Consistent moisture throughout•No odor released-ports sealed•Installing sensors reasonable•leachate evaporation system sized to handle leachate.

Greenhouse evaluation:•Significantly warms air used to aerate compost•Loading managable•Setup/breakdown labor hours•plants balance the exchange of oxygen.•air quality: mold count and ammonia contentpower requirements for fans

Sensor Evaluation:•Determine which data is most useful for evaluating the success of the compost process (Oxygen, BOD of leachate, temperature, CO², etc).•Cost•sensors remain calibrated, polyethelynes like PEX are fairly transparent to infrared (IR) light, but sensors sharing a housing must take isolated measurements

• housing failures• Maintenance hours

Sensor Hub Evaluation•Are the graphs easy to create, manipulate and easy read?•Can users receive useful SMS alerts? like ‘‘the pile is too cold” or “the pile is too dry”•failure rates of service and housing integrity•hours of labor for setup and maintenance, market value of development time, full cost analysis.•what is our network reliability?

Composting Greenhouse Evaluation

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Other Systems, Future Systems

Actual Size:

Ubicomp in the CompostIdeally all our sensors would be like

woodchips: cheap, ubiquitous, and thrown into the compost as a bulking agent. In real-time, they’d wirelessly communicate their exact location and findings on temperature, humidity, air-flow, CO², O², ammonia, and hydrogen sulfide. They’d have enough battery power to survive a year, after which they’d be screened out of finished com-post, charged up, and thrown back in a new batch. Long battery life already appears in commercial hardware, and recently developed low-power wireless-on-chip products from Atmel and others will certainly bring wireless capabilities soon.

As the possibilities to embed elec-tronics into designed objects continue to advance, it is crucial that flexible open-source management frameworks are developed and open techniques documented and propagated. Casting sensor nets across natural and built environments requires endless custom-ization and reformulation, tasks best suited to the plasticity of open systems.

Why We’re Building a New SystemWe’re committed to interoperability with other projects

in the emerging field of grassroots environmental monitor-ing. When we first started out, we evaluated our alternatives before deciding to build Sensor Hub. There are great and inspiring things about all these projects, and we urge you to consider them for your needs.

What makes the Sensor Hub project unique is how it handles Automated Data Collection. Sensor Hub is built around the most basic network infrastructure, SMS and email. Other systems, including Pachube and SensorServer were built to accept internet traffic first, in machine-readable formats. More direct SMS-based systems such as Sling-ShotSMS require a computer connected to a cellphone to always be on and receiving texts. Open Data Kit requires the phone to be running the Android platform which requires expensive and power hungry hardware on a data plan. Nokia Data Gathering and Java Rosa require the phone to be run-ning Java ME which again requires more expensive and power-hungry hardware on a data plan. The Ushahidi system accepts emails but is prone to abuse because it does not pro-vide secure transfers between cellphone node and hub and is also not designed to display Sensor data.

Building Sensor Hub on Drupal made sense because the Mailhandler module allowed us to import the emails as nodes. We then wrote code that parses the saved nodes into separate Sensor Reading nodes with the Sensor Site to Sensor Reading relationship data in tact. Building on the existing Flot module, Date module, and Views module we achieved the ability to graph the data between specific date ranges and for specific Sensors.

(17.5mm dia.) Sensors like ACR’s SmartButton temperature loggers are already the rightform factor- waterproof and capable of taking2048 measurements over 10 years. At $55 aren’t yet affordable enough to be truly ubiquitous.

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Where We’re Going (our business): New Ground Sanitation Services

change from the bottom up

We’re breaking new ground, developing the United States’ first composting portable toilets, and we’re literally making new ground, using high-temperature composting to generate safe, nutrient-rich soil

additives.

Our CommitmentWe’re committed to open R&D, mutual aid, and a non-hierarchical relationships. These ideas have shaped our R&D and prototyping process, and we will carry them on as we expand. We want to open participation in the design process to all comers, and we’re always seeking collaborators.

Our Team We’re experienced in design, manufacturing, software logistics, and mobile communications. Hardware: Mathew Lippincott & Molly Danielsson, Software: R.J. Steinert & Dennison Williams

2011 Development & Test Deployments:Phase 1 (Jan-March 2011): Build high-temperature, semi-automated composting greenhouse for year-round treatment, test four different container configurations.Phase 2 (March-May): Design portable toilets around optimal processing container.Phase 3 (June-October): Apply to the State seeking a variance for field trials of our unique sys-tem. Service small events with a fleet of six-eight toilets.

2012 Full-Scale Deployment: Deploy and refine ecological sanitation services at festivalsLong-term: Use portable toilet logistics as a model for new, neighborhood-scale waste management.

The Problem: US sewers spill more than 850 billion gallons of raw sewage per year, greater than 40 times the volume of excrement that is their primary pollution hazard and reason for existence. We need a new plan for the US, not just a patch.Our mission: To create low-energy open-source sanitation solutions based on the real transforma-tion of waste into healthy soil.The Solution: Use containerized collection and automated, electronically monitored processing to meet the legal and cultural expectations of US toilet users. Small-scale c0-composting (combined composting of excrement, food, paper, and other organic wastes) facilities such as ours save money and water, broaden access to sanitation, and produce compost that restores soils. Our toilets will be manu-factured and rented for events in the Northwest.

ImpactIn 2012, our first year of full-scale operation, we will divert over 40 tons of excrement from entering sewers, introduce tens of thousands of people to a new sanitation model, and empower thousands as sanitation advocates through ecological sanitation training before festivals. We will build greenhouses equipped with monitoring systems to quantitatively track waste reclamation and carbon capture. We will assess our carbon footprint by evaluating our carbon captured from composting excrement and

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other organic waste at events against the embodied carbon of our materials and fuel use. Using volun-teer and user rates at festivals and feedback surveys about customer experience, we will track individu-als’ responses to this new sanitation model. Through our website and partner organizations’ commu-nity outreach meetings we will document sanitation advocates’ post-event involvement.

MarketFestivals and other multi-day events outside city limits are our initial target market. Festivals have urban population densities and extensive waste trails. With on-site composting services, ecologically-minded festivals can move beyond a “leave no trace” model and towards leaving a positive impact--a big pile of high-quality compost. At large-scale events, our portable composting toilets will introduce ecological sanitation to thousands of people in just one weekend. User feedback from thousands of festival goers increases the public profile and viability of composting toilets as an option for residential use.

Business ModelThere are successful portable composting toilet companies in the UK, Australia, and Greece, but none serving the US due to social and legal obstacles. Our design process is directly engaged with public policy- we are designing around legal constraints and engaging with policy makers while in networked monitoring system, Sensor Hub, automates data collection to meet quantitative policy benchmarks. Our careful restroom design combines the latest ecological sanitation technologies to give users a new ‘’flush experience’’ with fresh sawdust rather than water.Providing adequate sanitation and waste collection are the 2nd most expensive costs for event planners after security. A carbon negative alternative like ours to chemical portable toilets and trash collection can charge a premium for waste diversion and provide a better user experience.