IDC Sensor for Low-Cost Water Quality Monitoring Applications ; Sensor IDC para aplicaciones de bajo costo para el monitoreo de la calidad del agua

In order to properly monitor the health status of the hydrological resources of a region, in terms of water contamination, a scalable and low-cost system is necessary to map the water quality at different locations and allow the prioritization of more sophisticated and expensive monitoring campaigns on those areas where a suspicious behavior seems to be occurring. This paper presents the design and implementation process of such an IoT-based solution for low-cost and scalable water quality monitoring applications. To achieve that end, we propose the utilization of a low-cost inter-digital capacitance (IDC) sensor to characterize the conductivity of the water, a very telling parameter about the level of pollution in the water. Additionally, an embedded method to measure such sensor was designed and implemented, which considers the requirements of a portable platform: low computational capabilities, small memory and low power consumption. Our results show that an IDC sensor is capable of detecting the changes of the capacitance of the sample, and therefore mapping the changes in the conductivity of the water. Additionally, integrating an embedded measuring method is a valid option for in-situ characterization of water samples and the complete solution enables a new paradigm for water quality monitoring in large scale scenarios. ; Con el objetivo de adecuadamente monitorear la salud de las fuentes hídricas de una región, en términos de la contaminación del agua, un sistema escalable y de bajo costo es necesario para mapear la calidad del agua en diferentes ubicaciones y permitir la priorización de campañas más sofisticadas y costosas a las áreas que presenten un comportamiento sospechoso. Este artículo presenta el diseño e implementación de este tipo de solución IoT de bajo costo y escalable para aplicaciones de monitoreo de calidad de agua. Con este objetivo, proponemos la utilización de un sensor capacitivo interdigitado (IDC) de bajo costo para caracterizar la conductividad del agua, un parámetro muy diciente ...