Ray Wang

Emulated network of IEEE 1451 application with multiple smart sensor reports

Sensors and actuators are used in wide range of applications in industry for monitoring, control and automation. IEEE 1451 is a suite of transducer interface standards trying to unify the transducer interfaces and thus to achieve an interoperable network of transducers. This paper deals with an emulated network of Network Capable Application Processors (NCAP)s which exchange messages as outlined in functional specifications of IEEE 1451.1 (Dot1). Although Dot1 will be going through changes that would enable compatibility with newly-released IEEE 1451.0, the functional data exchange in the application layer is expected to stay consistent with smart sensor node concepts in Dot0. Therefore, the objective has been the demonstration of communication between multiple NCAPs over a network and thus to showcase the functionality of a 1451 based communication model. To our knowledge, this demonstration is the first of its kind that shows the emerging standards of 1451 in a sensor networking environment.

A network management approach for implementing the smart sensor plug and play

Sensor networks are used in the industry extensively. Most of these networks are static and do not provide standardized and systematic network management capabilities. There is no intelligence associated with the sensors and they behave as mere sensing elements. There is a need to monitor the sensor networks with the classical elements of network management : fault, configuration, performance, accounting, and security. However, most of the sensor networking approaches lack a standardized method of handling these classical elements. This paper is on the demonstration of plug and play of smart sensors using a standardized internet network management protocol (SNMP - Simple Network Management Protocol) method with IEEE 1451-based TEDS capabilities. It also demonstrates plug and play capability at different levels to provide network and sensor management in a dynamic fashion. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of three-level plug and play in a standardized way using SNMP and IEEE 1451.

Demonstration of the plug and play of smart sensor nodes

Sensors and actuators are used in wide range of applications in industry for monitoring, control and automation. Plug and play is a term used to describe the characteristics of a device specification which facilitates the discovery of a hardware component in the network. Management of the smart sensor nodes, similar to the IEEE 1451 Network Capable Application Processor (NCAP), in a network through plug and play reduces the tedious job of monitoring them manually. The objective of this paper is to extend on our previous work of communication between multiple nodes to show the plug and play capability. The demonstration uses IEEE 1451.1 definitions and architecture from a guideline and perspective point of view. If a universal on-the-wire format has been accepted, this work will be exactly applicable to IEEE 1451 approach.

Middleware design for measurement data exchange in a smart sensor network

Sensor networks offer novel opportunities for measurement data exchange on a wide spectrum of applications where particular physical phenomenon is monitored for control purposes. In order to serve such a purpose, it is essential that the sensed data be reported to the monitoring unit. This communication should be dynamic and automatic. The use of wireless communication coupled with embedded processor technology for such information exchange greatly increases the associated flexibility and mobility. This paper discusses the design and development of a middleware for the communication between embedded systems in a wireless sensor network. The paper describes the various functions related to measurements that can be used in such a middleware, to realize a driver for measurement data exchange between the embedded processors of the nodes in the network.