Title: Long-term microclimate monitoring in wildland cultural heritage sites with wireless sensor networks

Authors: Ming Xia; Yabo Dong; Wenyuan Xu; Dongming Lu; Ping Xue; Gang Liu

Addresses: College of Computer Science and Technology, Zhejiang University of Technology, 288 Liuhe Road, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China. ' College of Computer Science and Technology, Zhejiang University, Education building 11-301, 38 Zheda Load, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China. ' Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of South Carolina, 3A54 Swearingen, 315 Main St. Columbia, SC 29208, USA. ' College of Computer Science and Technology, Zhejiang University, 38 Zheda Load, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China. ' Conservation Institute, Dunhuang Academy, Dunhuang, Gansu, China. ' Conservation Institute, Dunhuang Academy, Dunhuang, Gansu, China

Abstract: Microclimates in many wildland cultural heritage sites are not under surveillance up to now, due to the lack of power supply and network access. However, real-time microclimate data in cultural heritage sites are very important for research and conservation. In this paper, we discuss the design of a wireless sensor system for long-term microclimate monitoring in wildland cultural heritage sites. Tiered and robust communication architecture including wireless sensor network (WSN), long-distance wireless polling network (LWPN) and internet was developed to realise stable monitoring in complex and harsh environment. Meanwhile, fault detection and diagnosis strategies have been designed to enable quick system restoration once a severe failure occurs. The currently deployed system consists of 241 data sensors covering 57 typical caves of the Mogao Grottoes. The stability and long lifetime of the system are verified through network and battery performance evaluations at the end of the paper.

Keywords: microclimate monitoring; cultural heritage conservation; fault detection; remote diagnosis; wireless sensor networks; WSNs; wireless polling networks; internet; performance evaluation; remote areas; harsh environments; caves; China.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHPCN.2012.046386

International Journal of High Performance Computing and Networking, 2012 Vol.7 No.2, pp.111 - 122

Published online: 30 Aug 2014 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article