Autonomous real-time water quality sensing as an alternative to conventional monitoring to improve the detection of food, energy, and water indicators

Advances in sensors and wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are enabling real-time environmental monitoring, which has the potential to provide a plethora of fine-grained data to assist in understanding the symbiosis between food, energy, and water (FEW) systems. This paper presents the advantages of autonomous real-time water quality monitoring systems over conventional systems and proposes cost-effective and feasible approaches to designing a system that autonomously collects environmental data by integrating digital and mechanical devices connected through various communication networks, both wired and wireless. More specifically, the autonomous sensing devices proposed include low-cost water quality sensors implemented on commercial hardware and cell-based biosensors using electric cell-substrate impedance sensing (ECIS), which are capable of detecting water and/or air toxicants in real time.