Sensor System Design and Deployment for Environmental and Visitor Monitoring in Cultural Heritage Sites

Area of Science:

• Heritage Science
• Environmental Monitoring
• Sensor Technology

Background:

• Cultural heritage sites face challenges in monitoring environmental conditions and visitor presence.
• Existing monitoring solutions may be costly, power-intensive, or inflexible.
• The European ARGUS project aimed to address these limitations through innovative sensor systems.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design, develop, and validate low-power, low-cost sensor systems for cultural heritage sites.
• To enable both static and dynamic environmental monitoring and visitor tracking.
• To test and refine these systems through real-world pilot deployments.

Main Methods:

• Development of static sensor networks for fixed environmental monitoring.
• Integration of dynamic sensor systems on mobile platforms (quadruped robots, drones).
• Deployment and testing across five pilot sites in four European countries, with Baltanás as a primary testbed.
• Incorporation of various sensors: thermal-humidity, volumetric water content, wind, pollution, and visitor counting devices.

Main Results:

• Successful design and validation of versatile sensor systems.
• Demonstrated feasibility of both static and dynamic monitoring approaches.
• Iterative improvements based on testing at the Baltanás pilot site.
• Comprehensive performance evaluation of deployed sensor networks.

Conclusions:

• Low-power, low-cost sensor systems are effective for cultural heritage monitoring.
• Static and dynamic approaches provide flexible solutions for environmental and visitor tracking.
• The ARGUS project successfully demonstrated the potential of these systems in diverse European heritage settings.