Sensor utilisation

The following sensors are likely going to need continual or regular monitoring in order to be effective, meaning they will drain power.

To reduce power consumption, they, and the circuits associated with them, need to be ultra low power (tens of microamps at most, but preferably nanoamps). For more complex heuristics, for example where a sensor is comprised of several components, it will be prudent to use one component as a trigger to wake the other components where possible.

Note: This list is incomplete.

• Bhangmeter
  • initial events last milliseconds = always-on sensing
  • photonic (TBC), x-ray (dosimeter), infrasound (barometer/gyroscope) are all used to detect initial events
  • soundmeter for other types of bang (thunder, etc) - see later.
• Bolometer
  • depends what incident EM events we want to track
  • check every 5 mins?
• Dosimeter (cosmic ray and x-ray)
  • cosmic rays are rare thus need more extensive monitoring of detectors
  • x-ray needs monitoring for bhangmeter
• Fulmenometer
  • for early warning (IC and CC) the 777.4nm light sensor needs to be regularly checked (every couple of milliseconds?)
  • sferics also need continual monitoring
    • 💥 Use an AMS AS3935
  • infrasound (barometer) and magnetometer can potentially be enabled once a storm is detected (see also: bhangmeter)
• GPS
  • 1PPS RTC accuracy for TOF timestamping
  • primarily used for for fulmenometer/bhangmeter/soundmeter TOF
  • fulmenometer could ignore initial sferics
  • bhangmeter/soundmeter would still need very accurate timings though :/
• Gyroscope
  • see: magnetometer
• Heliophotometer
  • every 36 seconds during daylight 💥 Use an IDT ZOPT2201 (UV+Ambient interrupts)
    • On IRQ, set the next thresholds = no need to check every 36 seconds :)
• Magnetometer
  • need to determine what sort of things we want to detect
• Pluviometer
  • rainlight sensor to detect onset of rain; it triggers IRQ
  • could potentially use rainlight sensor to trigger heliophotometer via IRQ?
• Rangefinder
  • when sensor is in hand-held (continual when tilted downwards?) or drone mode (continual while active)
• SDR (if implemented)
  • can heuristics be used to limit updates?
• Seismometer
  • fallback seismometer would use barometer (infrasound) and accelerometer on main sensor array
  • could potentially have piezo vibration sensors trigger IRQ? (double up as power harvest)
  • remote seismometers outside scope of this wiki page; but see telemetry below
• Soundmeter
  • primarily to detect bangs, eg. thunder ...once per second?
  • 💥 Use a Vesper VM1010 as ultra-low power audio trigger to activate more advanced sensors
• Telemetry
  • needs to be active to detect incoming packets from remote sensors
  • also to handle BLE (beacons, mobile app, etc)
  • limit active listening to LoRa, BLE and XBee?
  • ...user must activate them via config; off by default
  • avoid active wifi/sigfox unless external power present
• UV radiometer (sky facing)?
  • only if it's used to trigger other sensors?
  • 💥 Use an IDT ZOPT2201 (UV+Ambient interrupts) and/or ZOPT2202 (only UV interrupt).