Performance testing of a low power consumption wireless sensor communication system integrated with an energy harvesting power source

This paper presents the performance testing results of a wireless sensor communication system with low power consumption integrated with a vibration energy harvesting power source. The experiments focus on the system’s capability to perform continuous monitoring and to wirelessly transmit the data acquired from the sensors to a user base station, completely battery-free. Energy harvesting technologies together with system design optimisation for power consumption minimisation ensure the system’s energy autonomous capability demonstrated in this paper by presenting the promising testing results achieved following its integration with Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) and Body Area Network (BAN) applications

Airborne Wireless Sensor Networks for Airplane Monitoring System

In traditional airplane monitoring system (AMS), data sensed from strain, vibration, ultrasound of structures or temperature, and humidity in cabin environment are transmitted to central data repository via wires. However, drawbacks still exist in wired AMS such as expensive installation and maintenance, and complicated wired connections. In recent years, accumulating interest has been drawn to performing AMS via airborne wireless sensor network (AWSN) system with the advantages of flexibility, low cost, and easy deployment. In this review, we present an overview of AMS and AWSN and demonstrate the requirements of AWSN for AMS particularly. Furthermore, existing wireless hardware prototypes and network communication schemes of AWSN are investigated according to these requirements. This paper will improve the understanding of how the AWSN design under AMS acquires sensor data accurately and carries out network communication efficiently, providing insights into prognostics and health management (PHM) for AMS in future

Energy harvesting technologies for structural health monitoring of airplane components - a review

With the aim of increasing the efficiency of maintenance and fuel usage in airplanes, structural health monitoring (SHM) of critical composite structures is increasingly expected and required. The optimized usage of this concept is subject of intensive work in the framework of the EU COST Action CA18203 "Optimising Design for Inspection" (ODIN). In this context, a thorough review of a broad range of energy harvesting (EH) technologies to be potentially used as power sources for the acoustic emission and guided wave propagation sensors of the considered SHM systems, as well as for the respective data elaboration and wireless communication modules, is provided in this work. EH devices based on the usage of kinetic energy, thermal gradients, solar radiation, airflow, and other viable energy sources, proposed so far in the literature, are thus described with a critical review of the respective specific power levels, of their potential placement on airplanes, as well as the consequently necessary power management architectures. The guidelines provided for the selection of the most appropriate EH and power management technologies create the preconditions to develop a new class of autonomous sensor nodes for the in-process, non-destructive SHM of airplane components.The work of S. Zelenika, P. Gljušcic, E. Kamenar and Ž. Vrcan is partly enabled by using the equipment funded via the EU European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) project no. RC.2.2.06-0001: “Research Infrastructure for Campus-based Laboratories at the University of Rijeka (RISK)” and partly supported by the University of Rijeka, Croatia, project uniri-tehnic-18-32 „Advanced mechatronics devices for smart technological solutions“. Z. Hadas, P. Tofel and O. Ševecek acknowledge the support provided via the Czech Science Foundation project GA19-17457S „Manufacturing and analysis of flexible piezoelectric layers for smart engineering”. J. Hlinka, F. Ksica and O. Rubes gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the ESIF, EU Operational Programme Research, Development and Education within the research project Center of Advanced Aerospace Technology (Reg. No.: CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000826) at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Brno University of Technology. V. Pakrashi would like to acknowledge UCD Energy Institute, Marine and Renewable Energy Ireland (MaREI) centre Ireland, Strengthening Infrastructure Risk Assessment in the Atlantic Area (SIRMA) Grant No. EAPA\826/2018, EU INTERREG Atlantic Area and Aquaculture Operations with Reliable Flexible Shielding Technologies for Prevention of Infestation in Offshore and Coastal Areas (FLEXAQUA), MarTera Era-Net cofund PBA/BIO/18/02 projects. The work of J.P.B. Silva is partially supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) in the framework of the Strategic Funding UIDB/FIS/04650/2020. M. Mrlik gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic-DKRVO (RP/CPS/2020/003

Analysis of Energy Consumption Performance towards Optimal Radioplanning of Wireless Sensor Networks in Heterogeneous Indoor Environments

In this paper the impact of complex indoor environment in the deployment and energy consumption of a wireless sensor network infrastructure is analyzed. The variable nature of the radio channel is analyzed by means of deterministic in-house 3D ray launching simulation of an indoor scenario, in which wireless sensors, based on an in-house CyFi implementation, typically used for environmental monitoring, are located. Received signal power and current consumption measurement results of the in-house designed wireless motes have been obtained, stating that adequate consideration of the network topology and morphology lead to optimal performance and power consumption reduction. The use of radioplanning techniques therefore aid in the deployment of more energy efficient elements, optimizing the overall performance of the variety of deployed wireless systems within the indoor scenario

Development and Flight Testing of a Wireless Avionics Network Based on the IEEE 802.11 Protocols

This report describes the development and flight testing of the IEEE 802.11 protocol-based Wireless Flight Management System (WFMS) using low cost Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) equipment and software. The unlicensed spectrum allocation in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands by the FCC has encouraged the industry to develop new standards for short-range communication that are commercially viable. This has resulted in new short-range communication technologies like Bluetooth and the Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN). The new modulation techniques developed for wireless communication support wired equivalent data rates. The commercial success of these technologies and their wide market adaptation has resulted in reduced costs for the devices that support these technologies. Applications of wireless technology in aerospace engineering are vast, including development, testing, manufacturing, prognostics health management, ground support equipment and active control. The high data rates offered by technologies like WLAN (IEEE 802.11 a/b/g) are sufficient to implement critical and essential data applications of avionics systems. A wireless avionics network based on IEEE 802.11a/b/g protocols will reduce the complexity and cost of installation and maintenance of the avionics system when compared to the existing wired system. The proposed WFMS imitates the flight management system of any commercial aircraft in terms of functionality. It utilizes a radio frequency for the transmission of the sensor data to the Cockpit Display Unit (CDU) and the Flight Management Computer (FMC). WFMS consists of a FMC, data acquisition node, sensor node and a user interface node. The FMC and the data acquisition nodes are built using PC/104 standard modules. The sensor node consists of an Attitude and Heading Reference System (AHRS) and a GPS integrated with a serial device server. The user interface node is installed with moving map software which receives data from the AHRS and GPS to display flight information including topographic maps, attitude, heading, velocity, et cetera. This thesis demonstrates the performance evaluation of the WFMS both on the ground and in flight, and its advantages over a wired system. This thesis focuses on the evaluation of IEEE 802.11a/b/g protocols for avionics application. Efforts taken to calibrate the available bandwidth of the WLAN network at different operating conditions and varying ranges using different network analysis tools are explained briefly. Considerable research on issues like electromagnetic interference and network security critical to the development of a wireless network for avionics has also been done. This report covers different aspects of the implementation of wireless technology for aircraft systems. This work is a successful starting point for the new fly-by-wireless concept with extensions to active wireless flight control

CREATING A SMARTPHONE APPLICATION FOR MEASURING RESPONSES OF AN EXPERIMENTAL STRUCTURE AT MULTIPLE LOCATIONS AND FOR K-12 STEM OUTREACH RELATED TO STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING

Structural health monitoring (SHM) systems are used to measure and analyze structure data (e.g., floor accelerations and strains in structural members) to identify damage (or structural changes) to a structure. With aging infrastructures and collapses of recent structures such as the 2007 I-35W Mississippi River Bridge and the 2013 clothing factory in Bangladesh, SHM can help address an important societal issue in structural safety and reliability. In the current practice, SHM systems include dedicated sensors linked (via wires or wirelessly) to data acquisition systems. These sensing systems are typically costly and impractical for many educational curriculums. A lack of exposures to college students limits applications and understanding of SHM in the practicing engineering industry. By replacing these dedicated sensing systems with a common technology such as smartphones, this thesis project aims to make SHM experiments inexpensive and practical to college students. Additionally, the project can assist in exposing K-12 students to SHM and the general field of structural engineering at a young age and increasing their interest in becoming engineers. This multidisciplinary research included developing a smartphone application using the JavaTM programming language on the Android platform. The application utilizes the phone’s user interface, internal accelerometer, internal storage, and Bluetooth to create a user friendly experience. One portion of the application is used for SHM purposes. It assists users in time-synchronizing multiple phones, recording acceleration data and detecting changes in structural properties. When compared to a dedicated sensing system used in a lab setting, data from the smartphones produced similar results. Another portion of the application, incorporated into an educational outreach program at a local middle school, was designed to help students understand the basic concepts of structural dynamics — more specifically, how stiffness and damping affect a structure’s motions. This interactive smartphone application, coupled with its ability to be a cost-effective system for measuring structural responses in classroom experiments, can get students excited about engineering

Data reduction strategies.

Based on the variety of methods available for gathering data for the aircraft health status, the challenge is to reduce the overall amount of data in a trackable and safe manner to ensure that the remaining data are characteristic of the current aircraft status. This chapter will cover available data reduction strategies for this task and discuss the data intensity of the SHM methods of Chaps. 5 to 8 and established approaches to deal with the acquired data. This includes aspects of algorithms and legal issues arising in this context