Success for flood monitoring sensor, which talks to the road signs directly without any human interference.
Flood alerting is an essential safety feature for smart road and cities. Automated flood alerting based on the advanced LPWAN technologies increase the intelligence with fraction of the old fashion technologies.
This blog is about the success story of cooperation with a council authority in Queensland Australia monitoring the flood level and automatically updating the road signs to prevent any unwanted risk for drivers.
Our success story revolves around a client, a council dedicated to water level monitoring. They faced a pressing challenge related to river flood monitoring. With the increase in extreme weather events, accurately predicting and monitoring river floods, especially in areas close to roads and cities, became crucial to protect lives and properties. Their existing bulky and expensive monitoring systems were outdated and lacked near real-time data, hindering their ability to respond swiftly to potential disasters. To address the challenge, we introduced the DUS2-N: Ultrasonic Distance & Level Sensor-Standard Model with customized relay output to send the command to the side road signs to turn them on and off depending on the water level beside the road.
Three unique features of this product contributed to its exceptional effectiveness:
a) Advanced Battery Operated Sensor Network: Council authorities incorporated a set of LoRaWAN and NB IoT ultrasonic sensors with built-in filtering (to minimize the noise), placed along their riverside and critical points in the state roads, continuously collecting near real-time data on water levels. This robust sensor network ensured high accuracy and reliability in flood monitoring.
b) Predictive Data Collection: The Ellenex software platform collected data, enabling it to predict flood events. This predictive capability allowed our partner to take proactive measures and issue timely warnings to local authorities, road passengers, and residents in flood-prone areas.
c) direct command to the roadside alerting signs: This is a unique and low-cost solution to use LPWAN technologies and provide reliable alerting systems on both hardware and platform level. It is important to consider both options in place as in a flood event there is a chance of network disconnection. In this case, the local connection between the sensor and the alerting system remains operational without experiencing a risk of disruption.
During the implementation phase, they encountered challenges, such as integration. However, our team at Ellenex diligently worked to overcome these obstacles, showcasing the Ellenex differentiator: our expertise in robust end-to-end composable monitoring solutions. This ensured accurate flood predictions and actionable insights. The added value of this technology was evident in the ability to save lives and reduce damage by enabling timely alerting and flood mitigation measures. The platform's ability to provide near real-time data and timely alerts helped communities prepare better and respond effectively to potential flooding situations.
This great experience with the local government in Queensland Australia was a good start to sharing this success story with other councils in Australia, United States, Europe, and other countries across the globe for low-cost flood monitoring and making a better and safer future for the community.
With such advancements in flood monitoring solutions, we can safeguard lives and build more resilient communities, especially in the face of climate change and increasing natural disasters.
Solution Page:
https://www.ellenex.com/solutions/flood-monitoring-on-rivers
Product Page:
DUS2-N Datasheet: https://www.ellenex.com/products/dus2-n