Report 4 (of 5): Private Eye - England

Introduction

The Environment Agency is responsible for monitoring any pollution discharged into England’s waters. The Environment Agency’s policy is to encourage self monitoring by dischargers to increase their awareness of the conditions of their own effluent. One of the main problems is being able to carry out the monitoring 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. At the National Centre for Environmental data and surveillance in Bath, scientists collect environmental data using a range of different instruments and techniques.

"Neptune II"

Wesley Irving is the inventor of a small box called "Neptune II" which is a remote logging device that accepts data from up to nine probes placed in streams, rivers and estuaries. The probes feed information about the water back to the logger which transmits it back to a central computer by radio or telephone. Whenever there is a change in water quality, Neptune II relays a message to the computer which in turn alerts a surveillance officer.

Neptune II has been developed to meet the requirements of the smaller dischargers for a low cost, "fit and forget" effluent monitor that does not need to provide large quantities of online data for control purposes and does not require the expensive level of support associated with process control. While a cost figure for Neptune II cannot yet be given, it is estimated that it should be much lower than existing, less flexible systems on the market.

Due to the large selection of environmental monitoring instruments available, Neptune II was designed to integrate with the widest range of sensors and monitoring instruments possible with the factors of usage, flexibility, ease of use and low maintenance taken into consideration.

Neptune II is a multiple channel, user configurable, remote access data logger. It is designed to record data from several sources and, when requested, send the data over a telemetry link to a PC. In this way, a remote discharge can be monitored in ‘real time’ by conventional office equipment without the operator leaving the office. Neptune II has been designed to be operable from either a remote PC or locally, from its eight front panel switches.

Controller Board

The electronics controller board consists of a central processing unit (CPU), random access memory (RAM), nine communication channels that can be configured as inputs or outputs, four fully programmable relays, personal computer memory card interface adaptor slot, telemetry device, setup panel and a 4x20 character liquid display. Neptune II has been configured using the industry standard communication protocols RS232 and RS422.

The controller operates under its own energy management system to minimise energy consumption, although Neptune II is designed to operate from a mains 240V a.c. supply. The system has been designed with a sealed lead acid battery to provide back up if the main supply fails.

Data Storage

The data card incorporated into Neptune II is a data storage device that is used to store the logged data. The larger the card, the more data it can store and the longer time Neptune II can run. The card can be removed and evaluated using a card reader and a PC. A new card can be inserted and Neptune II can continue to monitor.

Software

The software running on the controller board is largely involved with the control of the electronics, receiving data from various instruments and communicating with the telemetry system. The second set of software is resident on a PC and this is used to configure, monitor and interrogate the Neptune II unit. It runs on the Windows environment and consists of four screens: main status screen, input configuration screen, system configuration screen and the talk through screen. These screens have been designed to be user friendly and are mostly icon driven.

Configuration

For local communications one channel can be configured to talk to a PC, and for remote communications one channel may be configured to talk to a Paknet radio pad, modem or local area radio transmitter. The advantage of using local area radio is that there are no other expenses other than the capital cost of the equipment. Once configured, the Neptune II system will require little or no maintenance as all the set parameters are stored on battery backed memory and the data are stored in non volatile memory. The limiting time factor on Neptune II is the amount of time to fill the data card.

Paknet

Paknet is a data communications network which offers advantages over cellular communications techniques of speed, cost of ownership and reliability. The Paknet system conforms to Open Systems Interconnection standards which means that a wide range of monitoring devices, PC terminals, mainframes and other networks can all access it. Paknet transmits short data messages quickly and at low cost. A small radio pad communicator is required to access the Paknet service.

Conclusion

Neptune II presents effluent dischargers with a low cost, low maintenance method of maintaining awareness of their own effluent quality and provides them with comprehensive and cost effective real time information by which they can control the quality of their own effluent.
 

For further information, please contact:
 

Intermediate Technology would like to thank the Environment Agency and the National Centre for Environment Data and Surveillance - in particular, Wesley Irving, Paul Williams and Terry Long - for providing the original material, pictures and research technical report on Neptune II.
 

Further reading available from ITDG Development Bookshop

Safe to Drink? The Quality of Your Water
Julie Stauffer
£7.95, (Centre For Alternative Technology), 1996, ISBN 1 89804 914 9
 

TVE/ Practical Action gratefully acknowledge support for the HANDS ON programmes from the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), the European Commission (EC), the UN Foundation and UNDP/The Equator Initiative in collaboration with the Government of Canada, IDRC, IUCN, BrasilConnects and the Nature Conservancy.