Lessons from the field--two years of deploying operational wireless sensor networks on the Great Barrier Reef

Wireless Sensor Networks promised to do for observation systems what consumer electronics have done for areas like photography--drive down the price per observation (photograph), introduce new functionality and capabilities, and make, what had been a relatively exclusive set of technologies and capabilities, ubiquitous. While this may have been true for some terrestrial sensor networks there are issues in the marine environment that have limited the realization of ubiquitous cheap sensing. This paper reports on the lessons learned from two years of operation of wireless sensor networks deployed at seven coral reefs along the Great Barrier Reef in north-eastern Australia.