VLSI implementation of a novel sensor architecture for industrial wireless sensor networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are distributed sensing ecosystems equipped with computational intelligence and radio communication capabilities. The `neurons' of a typical WSN referred to as Sensor Nodes or Motes are tiny, low-cost, resource-efficient modules with embedded intelligence facilitating ultra-fast deployment, flexibility and energy-efficiency in their operations. Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks or IWSNs feature hundreds and thousands of sensors placed in and around the plant to enable remote monitoring, maintenance and troubleshooting. In this article, we present a full custom design of a sensor node for Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks with the primary focus on the architectural aspects of the implementation. The proposed sensor architecture consists of a 4-channel 12-bit Delta-Sigma ADC, a controller subsystem with SPI Master-Slave interfaces and an OFDM RF Transmitter subsystem. The architecture outlined in this article is a novel modular design characterized by an OFDM baseband processing RF subsystem facilitating reliable monitoring of plant variables which is a crucial parameter in Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks. The proposed system has been subjected to Front-end RTL simulation and synthesis using an array of EDA tools and the subsequent results have been critically examined in this article.