Project
Title: ACOUSTIC BUOY MESH ALARM SYSTEM
Introduction:
THE AUTONOMOUS ACOUSTIC BUOY (EPS-AAB)
The EPS-AAB (Autonomous Acoustic Buoy) is an ongoing student project with the final
objective to design a buoy capable of monitoring an area for (acoustic) cetacean activity or
anthropogenic noise. In previous years, among other things, a buoy has been designed,
software and hardware have been developed for data acquisition, and a watchdog system has
been built to ensure a safe and autonomous unattended operation of the electronics.
THE RADIO COMMUNICATION SYSTEM (‘EPS-XBEE’)
The AAB uses a computer able to record, classify, store and send acoustic information with a
high level of quality for scientific purposes. In order to save energy the system can be
programmed to be in sleeping mode unless an acoustic event takes place. The audio signal is
continuously monitored by low power electronics and when an acoustic event takes place, an
‘alarm’ is generated. This serves to awake the embedded computer and is to be immediately
reported to the end user.
In order to monitor a large area several AAB buoys can be deployed. These buoys will all have
the capability of sending “alarms” when a cetacean presence is detected or a certain noise
level is exceeded. To increase the radio coverage every AAB has the capability of acting as a
node of a wireless mesh network so the alarm can automatically find its way to the ship, base
or shore point where the end user terminal is installed.
The mesh network itself has been tested during the previous EPS project using XBEE
modules. This year’s EPS edition will focus on the communication between the embedded
board and the radio XBEE module, and the visualisation of the alarms by the end user. These
objectives can be adjusted based on the background of the participating students.
Project Brief:
For certain applications, only the ‘alarm’ of presence is needed and no recording is necessary,
hence no embedded PC is needed which drastically lowers power needs and cost of the buoy.
The 2013 EPS team will work on the implementation of this simplified solution.
Using the XBee radio devices and the existing AAB watchdog system, the following tasks need
to be realized and the students will work on one or more of them, depending on their formation:
- Design of the overall system architecture for alerts to be sent from the buoy to the end user.
- Physically construct the boards and do field tests with them to assess their real behaviour and
capabilities.
- Design a final receiver (XBEE-Receiver); a small box that will show the incoming alarm on an
LCD panel to the user. It will have PC connectivity.
- Program a PC user interface able of displaying the alarms on a map, to track their
movements, etc. when connected to the XBEE-Receiver.
Company
Name: LABORATORY OF APPLIED BIOACOUSTICS
Address: UPC – VILANOVA I LA GELTRU
Avd. Víctor Balaguer,1. Vilanova i la Geltrú , 08800
Contact person: Michel Andre
Project team:
Number of students: 3 to 6
Students speciality:
 Business Management
 Mechanical engineering
x Electrical engineering
x Electronics engineering
 Chemical engineering
x Computer engineering.
x Telecommunications engineering.