A distributed measurement system based on Peer-To-Peer architecture for River Monitoring

Several applications require for a distributed measurement system able to measure the same or different parameters at different points in a wide area. Distributed systems based on smart Web sensors represent the best solution to many different measurement problems. One of the main disadvantages of monitoring systems based on smart Web sensors is the difficulty to have a complete access to all data because they present a closed approach to interact with them, while Web services are adopted in order to give a standard approach in developing a service oriented architecture. The main goal of this paper is to present an implementation of a environmental sensor for distributed measurement system based on the Web service approach, adopting a freeware widely utilized technology, the Gnutella network, to route and share information adopting a low-cost hardware architecture. This solution offers great possibility in terms of fast and easy access to measured data, of integration of large complex Web sensor network, of realization of flexible custom applications and of service reusability developing new measurement application starting with different information also coming from different sensors.