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Water Quality, RFID, and Critical Systems Control
I went to three senior symposium presentations, all were very thorough and informative. The first presentation was titled RFID: A Technology to Change the Future, about RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) Tag technology, which is used in speedpass, and EZpass systems. Matt Kudla, the senior presenting RFID, discussed the history of RFID, and what his research showed was the future of RFID. He also detailed the frequency spectrum that it operates on, and the data acquisition system.
I attended the presentation titled Wirelessly Interfacing with Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition Software Monitoring Critical Systems, presented by Mike Barnes. He continued a previous senior thesis by finishing a PDA control interface for a critical system. The example he described used a Pocket PC to control a Nuclear Power Plant temperature system. For this application it is essential to have a secure wireless communication system. He described the new wireless security system that will be implemented to secure these networks. Barnes also admitted that the Nuclear scenario was going to happen later in the Future. He also described the system being implemented into the Harrisonburg City Public Transit System, which will allow a student to stand at a bus stop in a Wireless hotspot and check on their PDA the location of the bus that's running late.
The final presentation I attended was titled Probing Water Quality at McGaheysville Dam and the JMU Farm, by Andrew Boyd, Ian DeVivi, Jason Wynne. This project was a three part project:
- Monitor the water quality while removing a dam on a river in McGaheysville
- Develop a continuous water quality monitoring system for the JMU Farm on the North River
- Develop a web interface that will allow access to the water quality data from the JMU Farm monitoring site
Each of the seniors was responsible for a separate section, however they worked together throughout.
Their research found was inconclusive in finding the results from removing the dam, because of so many external variables such as temperature and aquatic life change.
The system they developed for water quality monitoring was a system to use a cell phone and data logger to record and send the data to server at JMU that stores the data in a SQL (Structured Query Language) database. The SQL database is a relational database that allows the manipulation and access of the data stored, basically a Microsoft Access database.
The web interface was created using Visual Basic a Microsoft application that develops applications (What I'm learning in ISAT 252) and ASP.NET which is a overlay that allows the VB application to be adapted and published as a website. Using the web interface the user could access the water quality data recorded at the JMU Farm.
Sorry, I didn't provide pictures, but I felt it was inappropriate to take pictures during a presentation and the question and answer portions were short, and the lighting was bad. I know, it sound's like a bunch of excuses, but I didn't want to post bad pictures. Now, my weekend has begun and I'm going to try and relax for a day, and then back to work on ISAT Lab reports for ISAT 252, and ISAT 253.
Posted by Matt on April 15, 2005 11:41 AM | Link | Email Matt
