Data Acquisition Field Network in Support of Remote Sensing Investigations

Integrated use of data collected during remote sensing experiments and data from in-situ measurements reveal more features of the land cover objects under study. This features incorporated into existing GIS databases leads to better understanding, representing, managing, and integrating many aspects of the Earth as a complex system. The in-situ gathered data such as, ground control points by GPS, current meteorological conditions, soil moisture, etc., provides additional information that is crucial in improving GIS effectiveness in decision support. To improve and facilitate the process of collection and storage of in-situ data a distributed mobile, wireless, field network was developed. The main components of the system are the autonomous, battery-powered micro controller devices wirelessly communicating with a central one. In this paper short description of the technical parameters and communication protocols between devices, hubs and the control center is outlined. From topological point of view two types of networks can be implemented -simple, used in small areas (usually less than 10 km²) and full, covering areas up to 50 km². Both networks has flexible structure, offered by a variable number of commands that could be easily adapted to meet the requirements of dissimilar measuring devices thus increasing the number of target applications -from land use to disaster monitoring. A prototype of the system successfully performed well on test polygons in North Bulgaria.