Satellite-Connected Buoy for Environmental Monitoring in Remote Andean Reservoirs

Catari-Alanoca J.G.; Santa-Maria M.C.; De Lucia Lobo F.; Gonzales R.; Ardiles R.D.N.; Ardiles-Saravia D.C. · Proceedings of the 2025 IEEE 32nd International Conference on Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computing, INTERCON 2025 (2025) · DOI: 10.1109/intercon67304.2025.11244667

Resumen

This work describes the design, construction and testing of a floating system (BUOY), containing electronic instrumentation, control software, satellite communications, and an autonomous power system, to measure various variables associated with water quality in high altitude water reservoirs. The system was design and tested in lotic systems around the city of Arequipa, Peru. Sensors were installed to measure dissolved oxygen, conductivity, temperature, and pH, as basic water quality parameters, and set to introduce phycocyanin and chlorophyll a in a future development. Data was recorded in real time and stored in a memory system. This information was simultaneously transmitted via satellite telecommunication to be made available in real time via the World Wide Web. The system was estimated to operate autonomously for 5 days on battery alone, or indefinitely with at least 1-2 hours of effective daily solar irradiation, sampling hourly for 15 min. On-field measured parameters were comparable to those obtained with an YSI Exo1 multiparameter.

Instituciones: Universidad Nacional de San Agustín de Arequipa; Universidad Católica de Santa María; Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología