Wide-area Environmental Sensing and AlerTing Networks (WESTnets)

Salo IT Solutions, Inc. will design and implement the Wide-area, Environmental Sensing and alterTing network (WESTnet) protocols, a next-generation suite of wireless network protocols that will provide enhanced services for hydrologic warning systems and other large-scale, wide-area environmental monitoring activities. The WESTnet protocols will offer significant functionality over that available with the existing solutions; they will also provide an upgrade for both the original ALERT protocol, which is widely deployed in hydrologic warning systems, and the more recent ALERT2 protocols. They will provide two-way communications, which will enable hydrologic warning systems to remotely control devices such as distant warning sirens, as well as manage nodes remotely. The WESTnet protocols can coexist with the ALERT protocol or the ALERT2 network. Perhaps more importantly, the WESTnet protocols will permit shared networks to be deployed that support both near-real-time hydrologic warning and non-real-time environmental monitoring, such as water quality monitoring. These shared networks may permit costs to be shared between, for example, a hydrologic warning system and an environmental monitoring system that covers the same geographical area.