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Volume 15, Number 3 |
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Students make, test new tools for environmental field samplingby Enrique R. Vivoni '96, '98, Research Assistant at Parsons Lab Field engineers, scientists and mobile workers generally rely on pencils and notebooks to collect and record data on location, although they have yearned for more efficient methods to handle this important information. Laptops have all the technical advantages, but are bulky and fragile to haul around in the field. In the last three years we have seen great advances in mobile computing and a widespread proliferation of handheld devices, also called PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants). These have the potential for developing software tools to improve the collection of field data in many engineering disciplines such as transportation studies, environmental assessments and project management. By bridging the gap between advances in Information Technology and Environmental Engineering, a new CEE student group with roots in Parsons Lab is facilitating the use of mobile computing for environmental field sampling. The ENVIT Student Group is deeply committed to bringing various technologies to students early in their undergraduate experience, and to integrate the new technology in the environmental curriculum and research at MIT.
The ENVIT Student Group currently consists of 24 CEE undergrads, UROP, MEng and PhD candidates. Together, they are developing a mobile software application intended to streamline the data collection process and improve the accuracy of environmental field data. The group has obtained funding through the MIT/Microsoft Alliance (I-Campus) during the 2001-2002 academic year for developing STEFS (Software Tools for Environmental Field Study) and testing the technology during an IAP field trip. STEFS is the first installment toward our goal of creating mobile field data collection software for the environmental professional.
The STEFS project intends to create an electronic field notebook that integrates the tasks of collecting data from environmental and geopositional sensors, storing the data, making computations in the field based on the data, and displaying the data to the field worker. Mobile mapping technology and a GPS sensor in the electronic field notebook add a new dimension of spatial localization to the data collection process. ENVIT-Note will include various new technologies for mobile computing, including Compaq Ipaq computers, Teletype GPS sensors for Ipaq, Hydrolab multi-parameter water quality probes, Global Water open channel flow meters, ESRI ArcPad Mobile GIS and Windows CE development with eMbedded Visual Basic, C++ and Access. The integrated system will provide accurate, efficient and inexpensive environmental and geopositional data gathering through GIS/GPS/sensor technology.
As part of the STEFS project, the ENVIT student group is sponsoring an undergraduate seminar, Course 1.992, during the Fall 2001 term. The class serves as a springboard for prototype development by CEE environmental engineering majors. In addition, it introduces students to mobile computing, programming for the Windows CE platform, technologies for field studies and entrepreneurship related to the product development. Students hear guest lecturers and practice programming within the Design Studio of the Future (Rm. 1-131). For product development, students have been assigned to working groups designated to develop a piece of the software or hardware system. Participants include Amy Watson '02, Arthur Fitzmaurice '03, Nancy Choi '02, Laura Rubiano-Gómez '04, Trisha McAndrews '03, James Brady '03, Brian Loux '04, Aurora Kagawa '03, Chrissy Dobson '03, Linda Liang '03, Kim Schwing '03, Anna Leos-Urbel '02 and Lisa Walters '04. Along with UROP and MEng researchers, the ENVIT officers are also developing portions of the software and hardware prototype during the Fall and Spring terms. Three UROP researchers (Keyuan Xu '04, Rose Liu '04 and Kan Liu '02) and several MEng students are working on distinct facets of the current prototype development and on potential future enhancements. The entire effort is being led by ENVIT officers Enrique Vivoni '96, '98, Richard Camilli '99, and Mario Rodriguez '00, with support from an advisory board composed of Daniel Sheehan (MIT Information Systems), and Sheila Frankel and Prof. Dara Entekhabi of Parsons Lab.
Field-testing of the project prototype will be conducted as part of a broader IAP trip to New Zealand and Australia, organized and led by Sheila Frankel as part of a series of undergraduate trips held during IAP. Previous trips to the Florida Everglades and the Big Island of Hawaii proved decisively that field studies are a crucial part of the undergraduate experience for environmental engineering majors. Integrating the field experience with tests of the prototype that the students themselves have helped develop is an important part of the overall goals of the STEFS project.
The field trip to Australia and New Zealand will focus on the Hawkesbury-Nepean Watershed near Sydney, Australia as an example of a watershed under anthropogenic stress. Water quality and quantity within the watershed will be sampled to support an ongoing water quality study in the region. In addition to testing our prototype, we will use the field data to verify collected GIS maps and to supplement a database for numerically modeling the hydrology and water quality in the watershed. The field program will instruct students how to carry out a watershed management study in conjunction with modeling and policy efforts. The group will also tour other sites such as the Great Barrier Reef and the Australian Rain Forest. In addition, Parsons alumni in the vicinity have offered to lecture on various environmental issues.
Following the field trip, the test results of the ENVIT-Note application and the various software and hardware components used in the integrated system will be incorporated into possible enhancements for the prototype. The final product will be used in subsequent laboratory and field courses within the CEE Dept. In this way, the ENVIT student group hopes to contribute to undergraduate education by transferring information technology to the classroom and field settings, and helping students learn hands-on field data collection, a common task for environmental engineers and earth scientists.
Check the ENVIT Student Group website for more details on the STEFS project, information on mobile computing for CEE applications, the Fall 2001 seminar and the IAP Field Trip (http://web.mit.edu/envit/www).
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"Civil and Environmental Engineering at
MIT"
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