A wireless interface for replacing the cables in bridge-sensor applications

• Published in: Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2012-08, Vol.12 (8), p.10014-10033
• Main Authors: Pavlin, Marko, Novak, Franc
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adaptation; Algorithms; Automation; bridge-sensor measurements; Bridges; Cables; comparative test methods; Hardware; Infrastructure; Interfaces; Monitoring systems; Receivers; reciprocal topology; sensor data integrity and reduction; Sensors; signal stream delay testing; Temporal logic; Transfer functions; Transmitters; Wireless communication; wireless interface
• ISSN: 1424-8220; 1424-8220
• DOI: 10.3390/s120810014

This paper presents a solution in which a wireless interface is employed to replace the cables in bridge-sensor measurement applications. The most noticeable feature of the presented approach is the fact that the wireless interface simply replaces the cables without any additional hardware modification to the existing system. In this approach, the concept of reciprocal topology is employed, where the transmitter side acquires signals with its own transfer function and the receiver side reconstructs them with the transfer function reciprocal to the transmitter transfer function. In this paper the principle of data acquisition and reconstruction is described together with the implementation details of the signal transfer from the sensor to the signal-monitoring equipment. The wireless data communication was investigated and proprietary data-reduction methods were developed. The proposed methods and algorithms were implemented using two different wireless technologies. The performance was evaluated with a dedicated data-acquisition system and finally, the test results were analyzed. The two different sets of results indicated the high level of amplitude and the temporal accuracy of the wirelessly transferred sensor signals.