Wireless measurement system based on ZigBee transmission technology

In this paper we present a new application that use ZigBee radio modules for implementation of an distributed system intended for continuous measurement and monitoring of radiation level in an surveillance area. Wireless measurement system is realized around JN5139-EK010 ZigBee development board which was programmed for this specific application. The system can be used for radiation level measurement and surveillance in the customs supervising offices, frontiers, nuclear plants, or other industrial or civil areas etc. Besides the development board, the hardware configuration of the proposed system comprises also the sensors mounted on remote modules. The development board is connected to PC through the serial interface. The remote modules periodically read the signals from sensors and send the result to the controller board that display the received data on a LCD panel. The analog signal processing from radiation sensors is realized with dynamically reconfigurable Field Programmable Analog Arrays AN221E04 from Anadigm. From the point of view of ZigBee protocol, in the proposed application the controller board is programmed to operate as Coordinator and the remote board act as End Device. If the system must be extended, some of the supplementary added ZigBee nodes will be necessary to be configured as Routers. The use of JN5139 ZigBee wireless microcontroller ensures a robust and secure communication between system's modules with very low power consumption. For obtaining a further reduction of the power consumption, the system has also the possibility to configure remote board thus to transmit data only when are interrogated by the controller board.