Media.Player

Reconfigurable Wireless Sensor Network: Wireless System with Rugged, Detachable Sensors for a Modular Monitoring System

Detailed Technology Description

In soft electronics, rather than fiberglass or stiff polymer printed circuit boards, the electrical conductors are thin wires or conductive threads. These conductive threads are limited in that they must be cut to make electrical connections.

*Abstract

Reconfigurable Wireless Sensor Network

Wireless System with Rugged, Detachable Sensors for a Modular Monitoring System

RDF #07054

Highlights

• User-friendly design and interface allows for “plug and play” attachment of sensors in any order; 
• Automatic recognition, configuration, and/or calibration of sensors by the associated software reduces amount of training needed by end users;
• Weatherproof, amphibious serial interface allows operation under extreme environmental conditions.
• Part of a suite of soft sensor technologies that also includes: 
  • Stretchable Optical Fibers
  • Power-Extracting Contact Arrays

*This Technology is available for licensing, further development, or industrial partnering*

CONTACT: thinker@louisville.edu / 502.852.2965 / Attn.: RDF#07054

Technology

In recent years, the development of cheaper, smarter, and smaller sensors have propelled the demand for Wireless System Networks.

To address that demand, researchers at the University of Louisville have developed a low- cost, low power, all-weather ZigBee-based wireless network that is capable of acting as a medium for uploading telemetry from an array of functionally diverse sensors (chemical, pressure, flow, temperature, etc.). 

 The sensors can be added to and removed from the array in a plug-and-play manner and in any order for functional optimization. The sensor network is ruggedly constructed, and can be used to monitor parameters in less than optimal environmental conditions

The network enables the user to reconfigure a wireless sensor network for the function of interest, whether measuring weather conditions, the presence of chemical pollutants or biological pathogens, or human-generated signals such as heat signatures, voice signals, or button presses.

The network has various potential applications, including the following:

• Environmental sensor network for 3-D remote sampling of conditions at various depths in an aquatic or arboreal setting.

• Chemical/biological agent monitoring network infrastructure reconfigurable for a variable array of pathogens in a medical or battlefield setting.

• Factory processing monitoring sensor network that can be reconfigured depending on current process and factory layout.

     

Technology Status

• IP Status: Issued Non-Provisional US National Stage No. 12/676,450
• Development Status: Prototype developed and tested with positive results
• Fields of Use Available: All
• Publications: Harnett, Cindy K., et al. "Calibration and field deployment of low-cost fluid flow-rate sensors using a wireless network." IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement 60.2 (2011): 633-641.

    

Inventors:

• Cindy K. Harnett, Ph.D.

Country/Region

USA