A wireless mesh sensor network for hazard and safety monitoring at the Port of Brisbane

A wireless sensor network (WSN) was designed and implemented to provide reliable long-term hazard monitoring at the Port of Brisbane, Australia. The proposed system consists of four sensor nodes, a wireless gateway and a central monitoring computer. The sensor nodes are capable of measuring a range of hazardous events along with the time and location of events in maritime environment. Each sensor node is also equipped with a Global Positioning System (GPS) module and a ZigBee module. The monitoring server is a personal computer application server with Internet connectivity. Sensor nodes utilize smart algorithm to save energy and AES-128 encryption to encode data prior to sending the data packet through the wireless ZigBee protocol to gateway. The gateway collects and decrypts the data packets and forwards them to the monitoring computer through wireless connection. A database server running on the monitoring computer stores the captured data for visualization and further analysis. The monitoring server is interfaced to Google Maps to overlay real-time data from the sensor nodes onto map in the correct corresponding locations. The WSN system was successfully deployed and tested at the Port of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.