Thomas M. Wendt

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) based wireless sensors

The following paper presents the results of a feasibility study about Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) based wireless sensors. The development of industrial wireless sensors leads to important demands for the wireless technologies like a low energy consumption and a resource saving simple protocol stack. Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is a rather new wireless standard which will completely fulfill these fundamental requirements. A self-designed BLE sensor system has been used to explore the common applicability of BLE for wireless sensor systems. The evaluation results of various analyses with the BLE sensor system are now presented in this paper.

Performance analysis of an Bluetooth Low Energy sensor system

During the last ten years the development of wireless sensing applications has become more and more attractive. A major reason for this trend is the large quantity of available wireless technologies. The progressing demand on wireless technologies is mainly driven through development from the industrial wireless sensors market. Especially requirements like low energy consumption, a resource saving simple protocol stack and short timing delays between different states of the wireless transceivers are very important for wireless sensors. Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is a rather new wireless standard in addition to the traditional Bluetooth standard (Basis rate and enhanced data rate, BR/EDR) [1]. The BLE will completely fulfill these fundamental requirements. First BLE transceiver chips and modules are available and have been tested and implemented in products. In this paper the performance analysis results of a BLE sensor system which is based on the TI transceiver CC2540F [5] will be presented. The results can be taken for further important investigations like lifetime calculations or BLE simulation models.

Multi-robot Range-Only SLAM by Active Sensor Nodes for Urban Search and Rescue

To jointly map an unknown environment with a team of autonomous robots is a challenging problem, particularly in large environments, as for example the area of devastation after a disaster. Under such conditions standard methods for Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (SLAM) are difficult to apply due to possible misinterpretations of sensor data, leading to erroneous data association for loop closure. We consider the problem of multi-robot range-only SLAM for robot teams by solving the data association problem with wireless sensor nodes that we designed for this purpose. The memory of these nodes is utilized for the exchange of map data between multiple robots, facilitating loop-closures on jointly generated maps. We introduce RSLAM, which is a variant of FastSlam, extended for range-only measurements and the multi-robot case. Maps are generated from robot odometry and range estimates, which are computed from the RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indication). The proposed method has been extensively tested in USARSim, which serves as basis for the Virtual Robots competition at RoboCup, and by real-world experiments with a team of mobile robots. The presented results indicates that the approach is capable of building consistent maps in presence of real sensor noise, as well as to improve mapping results of multiple robots by data sharing.

Wake-Up Methods to Extend Battery Life Time of Wireless Sensor Nodes

The power consumption in wireless sensor networks is one of the main issues when designing sensor nodes. Furthermore the available energy density of batteries for a given battery size and the difficulty of recharging possibilities limits the life cycle of sensor nodes [8]. Wake up strategies will help to expand the operational life cycle of sensor nodes by reducing their power consumption. The focus of this work is to compare and evaluate wake up solutions for wireless sensor applications [1]. A custom demonstration platform to perform theses evaluations and measurements has been developed. The current measurements at the demonstrator have shown that wake up strategies [11] in conjunction with switching of not needed components will extend the life cycle enormous. In continuous receiving and transmit mode a sensor node will operate for 2-3 hours. If the sensor node is operated in wake up and smart switching mode it can operate up to several years.

A benchmark survey of long range (LoRaTM) spread-spectrum-communication at 2.45 GHz for safety applications

The demand of wireless solutions in industrial applications increases since the early nineties. This trend is not only ongoing, it is further pushed by developments in the area of software stacks like the latest Bluetooth Low Energy Stack. It is also pushed by new chip-designs and powerful and highly integrated electronic hardware. The acceptance of wireless technologies as a possible solution for industrial applications, has overcome the entry barrier [1]. The first step to see wireless as standard for many industrial applications is almost accomplished. Nevertheless there is nearly none acceptance of wireless technology for Safety applications. One highly challenging and demanding requirement is still unsolved: The aspect safety and robustness. Those topics have been addressed in many cases but always in a similar manner. WirelessHART as an example addresses this topic with redundant so called multiple propagation paths and frequency hopping to handle with interferences and loss of network participants. So far the pure peer to peer link is rarely investigated and there are less safety solutions available. One product called LoRa™ can be seen as one possible solution to address this lack of safety within wireless links. This paper focuses on the safety performance evaluation of a modem-chip-design. The use of diverse and redundant wireless technologies like LoRa can lead to an increase acceptance of wireless in safety applications. Many measurements in real industrial application have been carried out to be able to benchmark the new chip in terms of the safety aspects. The content of this research results can help to raise the level of confidence in wireless. In this paper, the term “safety” is used for data transmission reliability.

Multiple Access Methods utilized to extend Operational Life Time of Wireless Sensor Nodes

The power consumption in wireless sensor networks is one of the main issues when designing sensor nodes. Furthermore the available energy density of batteries for a given battery size and the difficulty of recharging possibilities limits the life cycle of sensor nodes. Multiple access methods will help to expand the operational life cycle of sensor nodes by reducing their power consumption. The focus of this work is to evaluate multiples access methods wake-up solutions for wireless sensor applications. A custom demonstration platform to perform theses evaluations and measurements has been developed. The current measurements have shown that multiple access wake-up methods in conjunction with switching of not needed components will extend the life cycle of sensor nodes immense.

A simple and robust architecture for reliable, latency-critical applications within medical operating rooms

In medical applications wireless technologies are not widely spread. Today they are mainly used in non latency-critical applications where reliability can be guaranteed through retransmission protocols and error correction mechanisms. By using retransmission protocols within the disturbed shared wireless channel latency will increase. Therefore retransmission protocols are not sufficient for removing latency-critical wired connections within operating rooms such as foot switches. Todays research aims to improve reliability through the physical characteristics of the wireless channel by using diversity methods and more robust modulation. In this paper an Architecture for building up a reliable network is presented. The Architecture offers the possibility for devices with different reliability, latency and energy consumption requirements to participate. Furthermore reliability, latency and energy consumption are scalable for every single participant.

Time-of-Flight Cameras Enabling Collaborative Robots for Improved Safety in Medical Applications

Human-robot collaboration is being used more and more in industry applications and is finding its way into medical applications. Industrial robots that are used for human-robot collaboration, cannot detect obstacles from a distance. This paper introduced the idea of using wireless technology to connect a Time-of-Flight camera to off-the-shelf industrial robots. This way, the robot can detect obstacles up to a distance of five meters. Connecting Time-of-Flight cameras to robots increases the safety in human-robot collaboration by detecting obstacles before a collision. After looking at the state of the art, the authors elaborated the different requirements for such a system. The Time-of-Flight camera from Heptagon is able to work in a range of up to five meters and can connect to the control unit of the robot via a wireless connection.

Architecture for achieving multiple diversity gain for latency-critical applications

In safety critical applications wireless technologies are not widely spread. This is mainly due to reliability and latency requirements. In this paper a new wireless architecture is presented which will allow for customizing the latency and reliability for every single participant within the network. The architecture allows for building up a network of inhomogeneous participants with different reliability and latency requirements. The used TDMA scheme with TDD as duplex method is acting gentle on resources. Therefore participants with different processing and energy resources are able to participate.

Accelerated buffer overflow simulation in self-similar queuing networks with long-range dependent processes and finite buffer capacity

The paper recommends an approach to estimate effectively the probability of buffer overflow in high-speed communication networks, capable of carrying diverse traffic, including self-similar teletraffic, and supporting diverse levels of quality of service. Simulations with stochastic, long-range dependent self-similar traffic source models are conducted. A new efficient algorithm, based on a variant of the RESTART/LRE method, is developed and applied to accelerate the buffer overflow simulation in a finite buffer single server model under long-range dependent self-similar traffic load with different buffer sizes. Numerical examples and simulation results are shown.