An interesting blog entry on WSN and their use in Developing Countries can be found here.

“When deciding on using wireless systems to Sri Lanka various matters have to be looked into before coming to the final conclusion of it. For example a typical sensor board used for these applications costs around two hundred dollars and the sensors it self has prices ranging form fifty dollars onwards. Even though companies say that this is an affordable solution as for a third world country like us this may not be a very cheap solution. If we were to develop a sensor based system for farmers in our country the costs we incur will be great and sometimes may not be feasible when compared to the available solutions. Furthermore in countries like ours the where labor cost is very low a farmer can afford about ten laborers at the cost of a single sensor. So converting form this manual labor system to a high technological solution like sensor networks in our country may not be easy.”

New York may be the first state with a 24/7 wireless bridge monitoring system, reports EE Times. The $500,000 project is being funded by the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority. Engineering professor Kerop Janoyan at Clarkson University is working with TransTech Systems (Schenectady, N.Y.) to craft a commercial version of their wireless bridge monitoring system.

The wireless sensor nodes use accelerometers and strain gauges as well as more exotic sensors from ultra sound to eddy currents, depending on specific monitoring problems. Wireless nodes, which are battery powered, are polled by a master single-board computer that aggregates sensor data and determines whether to alert inspectors.

Read the whole story here.