I gave a presentation on how smart online sensors and IOT can increase water safety and bring understanding on for instance to where micro plastics come and where they go.
The new smart sensors for liquids are capable to measure complex features inline and continuously. This allows continuous monitoring for complex liquids much like the modern hearth beat sensors enable to measure the hearth beat continuously. You no longer “sample” your hearth rate during the morning run with the chest band but instead get continuous data 24/7 from your wrist or body when embedded in your clothing. With continuous data, in case of hearth beat, you can understand how your body functions. As an example, below is a graph of my average resting hearth rate, where you can see I caught a flu the last week and I am currently recovering. Inline measurements are never as exact as sample-based laboratory measurements but they are way better in helping you to see the forest for the trees – a single measurement now and then can be misleading.
Internet of Things (IOT) enables connecting these sensors into a cloud for everyone to see and analyze. Simple things such as measuring outside temperature gets a whole new perspective when multiple sensors can be read simultaneously. In the below figure you can see the temperature around my home town: similarly you could see where its raining or in which direction wind is blowing. I can only imagine what this micro level analysis will do for weather forecasting in the future.
Similarly modern smart sensors for liquids can nowadays connect into complex industrial processes or a river next to your home and provide real time data on what flows there and where and whence they come from, day and night. In environmental solutions this can be shared with everyone. Our example below shows a measurement graph done with Collo-sensor. Soon we will be able to understand the surrounding liquids better!
To control you must understand; to understand you must measure. – Matti Järveläinen
