Key Features

EWAN, with the Voltree Power module at its heart, is the first remote-sensing network that presents an attractive return on investment for vast forestland monitoring.

Elimination of Battery Replacement

While batteries are becoming better and longer lived, they will remain an expensive and cumbersome component of any low-power distributed system for the foreseeable future. Batteries still present the bottleneck to the practical implementation of “smart dust” type solutions, especially for long-lifetime, vast and remote area sensing and monitoring.

The Voltree Power bioenergy harvesting module eliminates the need for battery replacement and removes the following costs from the EWAN:

• Cost of (hundreds) of thousands of batteries
• Labor costs associated with battery replacement/maintenance
• Environmental and labor costs of responsible battery disposition/recycling

Real-Time Information

Real-Time information and integration with various wireless platforms provides flexibility and adaptability to numerous sensing applications.

Voltree Power has adapted its technology to work seamlessly with the National Fire Interagency Center’s Remote Automated Weather Stations (RAWS) thereby enhancing and adding value to the already existing fire prediction and weather observation infrastructure.

Real-Time RAWS data can be viewed via the following websites:

• Real-time Observation Monitor and Analysis Network through partnership of the USDA Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and National Weather Service.

• Western Regional Climate Center (WRCC) Supports a Three-Partner National Climate Service Program of National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), Regional Climate Centers (RCC's), and State Climate Offices.

The EWAN extends the usefulness of RAWS by offering the IFCC and USDAFS high-resolution, real-time air-humidty and temperature data using the RAWS satellite communications and software interfaces already in place.

Predictive Models

An accurate, real-time, air humidity and temperature data set is the “holy grail” of fire prediction and cost-efficient fire suppression as well as resource deployment and prescribed fire determination for high risk, hazardous fuel areas (see "Predicting Wildfires" Patricia Andrews, Mark Finney and Mark Fischetti, Scientific American, August 2007 pp47-55.)

The EWAN provides ultra-high resolution, local, real-time air humidity and temperature data at an unprecedented low cost per acre. Eliminating battery replacement removes the bottleneck of powering thousands of inexpensive transceiver/sensor nodes making the EWAN a cost-effective solution that supports and improves the quality, accuracy, resolution and timeliness of the local climate data already being collected for use by existing predictive services of the IFCC and USDAFS. These data are shared by federal wildland fire agencies, the National Association of State Foresters, the National Weather Service, the Intelligence and Meteorology Working Groups as well as field managers.

Making a Vast, Cost-Effective Mesh Network

While mesh-networking sensing technologies are widely available, no cost-efficient way to power thousands of sensors distributed over remote forest land has ever been developed, until now. Voltree’s battery elimination in favor of a bioenergy harvesting power module and EWAN’s customized software platform finally makes a vast, long-lasting network of sensors a cost-effective solution to high resolution local climate data collection. Utilizing the well-understood, inexpensive and low-power IEEE 802.15.4 and ZigBee protocols, EWAN adds functionality and extends the usefulness of existing systems, simplifies user communication and system diagnostics and represents a new generation of highly automated, resilient, maintenance-free mesh network.

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Key Features

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