Wireless Technology Study and the Use of Smart Sensors for Intelligent Control and Automation

With advances in processing power of embedded smart sensors, it is possible to incorporate enough intelligence into a small package to enhance an existing platform while reducing data flow requirements on legacy systems. The addition of a wireless interface to these sensors is possible as well. This paper covers information on current wireless technologies and examples on how smart wireless sensors can be used to develop diagnostic and prognostic wireless health monitoring nodes. This study provides the knowledge needed to design the wireless infrastructure for a wireless health monitoring system. This paper presents the current wireless technologies which may be used for wireless sensors and the advantages and disadvantages of each standard. The technology presented within this paper was successfully demonstrated on various health monitoring applications. The last section of this paper shows a few wireless health monitoring applications developed by the applied research laboratory. The first application demonstrates a Windows based application developed on a PC-104 platform for monitoring fuel system health and reconfigures system for optimal usage of pump and filters. The other applications were developed using a SHARC-based system for providing diagnostic and prognostic assessments of gearbox systems