Wireless Sensor Networking Products


Wireless Sensor Networks

A wireless sensor network (WSN) is a group of specialized transducers which use sensors placed in diverse locations to monitor physical conditions. A WSN system is composed of multiple sensor nodes that are small and light hence portable. Each system is a has a gateway that provides wireless connectivity back to the wired world and amongst the nodes. There are numerous wireless protocols that can be used with WSN, the protocol is picked based on application requirements.

Components of a sensor node

Every sensor node is made up of the following
  • Transducer
  • Transceiver
  • Power source

Transducers

Commonly monitored parameters include pressure, humidity, temperature, chemical concentrations, wind speed and direction, sound intensity, pollutant levels, power-line voltage, illumination intensity and some body functions. Transducers that can convert energy from one form to another are required to sense these parameters and convert them to another form of energy that can be measured and translated. Sensors are the best transducers for such tasks. It is for this reason that sensors form a better part of the nodes. Commonly used sensors include;
  • Pressure sensor
  • Motion sensors
  • Hall sensors
  • Temperature sensors
  • Humidity
  • Infrared sensors
There are many other sensors that are used by the nodes. The choice of sensors is entirely based on the application of the WSN.

Microcomputer

The role of the microcomputer is to process and store sensor output. Most microcomputers are surface embedded chips. One such microprocessor is the Xeon D-2100. Power consumption plays a key role when picking a microprocessor. Low consumption is often traded-off with processing speed hence the x86 architecture is rarely used for battery powered devices.

Transceiver

A transceiver is made up of both a transmitter and a receiver. The transceiver is responsible for the communication of the wireless sensor node with other nodes and with the base station. It is made up of the front end, back end and assisting components, for instance, DACs, ADCs, mixers, voltage oscillators, amplifiers, frequency synthesizers and phase locked loop. All these components require a lot of power to run hence why the transceiver is the biggest power consumer in a node. Based on their mode of operation, a transceiver can either be half or full duplex. A transceiver that cannot transmit and receive at the same time is called a half-duplex transceiver while that which can do both at the same time is referred to as a full-duplex transceiver.

Power source

The most prevalent power source in WSN nodes is batteries. Besides the demand for longer lasting batteries, the size and weight of batteries come into play when considering one for use with WSN nodes. Owing to their ease of availability, carbon-zinc and alkaline batteries are commonly used. In order to extend battery life, ZigBee is often used in many WSN systems since it consumes low-power. To further tame power consumption, WSN nodes periodically wakes and transmits data and then slides back to the standby mode so as to conserve energy.
There are many types of transceivers, transducer, microcomputers available in the market. There are also very many manufacturers of the same. As a WSN designer, you might have to pick them out keenly so as to ensure that whatever components you pick suits well with your application.
Source: https://blog.enrgtech.co.uk/wireless-sensor-networking-products/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Little Know more about Brush-less Motors

Image
Brushless motors Brushless differs from conventional dc motors in the sense that it does not have brushes. Commutation is done using electronic drives to feed power to the stator windings. They consist of a rotor which is in the form of a permanent magnet and a stator that is in the form of polyphase armature windings. A  brushless DC motor  can be constructed in two ways; one is by placing the rotor outside the core and the other is by placing the rotor inside the core. How a brushless motor works Brushless motors are driven by electronic drives that  switch  the supply voltage between the stator windings while the rotor turns. There is a transducer that monitors the position of the rotor as it turns and conveys the information to an electronic controller. The controller then decides which stator winding to be energized based on the position of the rotor. Electronic drives are made up of two transistors each phase which is run by a microprocessor. T...
Read more

LED Modules: Manufacturer,Types and Application

Image
LED Modules Light-emitting diodes (LED) modules are LED self-contained devices that are designed to either function on its own or to plug into a compatible unit. These modules are mostly used in the development of both energy-efficient and portable lighting.  An LED contains several LED bulbs that are connected to a fixture that contains a battery or an alternative power supply which powers all the bulbs contained therein. LED modules can either emit white light or emit different colours based on the material they are made of. They are prominently used for advertising and signages but could as well be used for other purposes due to their versatility. Types of LED modules There are a variety of LED modules available in the market. There no specific parameters that can be used to categorize LED modules . They can be categorized in terms of efficiency, form, CCT, colour among others. Some of the common ones used in signage and advertising include; Side LED mod...
Read more

Block-chain: A Complete Beginners Guide | Block Chain Technology

Image
Blockchain technology Blockchain technology is barely three decades old, but it has completely changed global money transfer as we know it. It was first conceived in 1991 by a group of researchers who originally intended it to be used to timestamp digital documents to make it impossible to tamper with them. This concept was first put into actual use in 2009 by Satoshi Takamoto to create Bitcoin. Bitcoin has since spurred the adoption of  blockchain technology  for cryptocurrency, medical records, and land records among others.  What is blockchain? A blockchain is a network of computers that share a digital ledger that is duplicated and distributed across all participants in the network (nodes). That is to say that each node on the network has a duplicate copy of the ledger. The digital ledger keeps a chain of transactions since the creation of the network. The chain of transactions keeps growing as new blocks of transactions are approved and then added along....
Read more