Integrating Wireless Sensor Technologies into Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems

Abstract

Recent technological advancements in low-power, low-cost, small-footprint embedded processors, sensors, and radios are resulting in the very rapid growth of wireless sensor network deployments. Wireless sensor networks merge the scalability and distributed nature of networked systems with the size and energy constraints of remote embedded systems. With the ever increasing need to develop less intrusive, more scalable solutions for instrumentation systems, wireless sensor technologies present several benefits. They largely eliminate the need for power and network wiring, thus potentially reducing cost, weight, and deployment time; their modularity provides the flexibility to rapidly change instrumentation configurations and the capability to increase the coverage of an instrumentation system. While the benefits are exciting and varied, as with any emerging technology, many challenges need to be overcome before wireless sensor networks can be effectively and successfully deployed in instrumentation applications, including throughput, latency, power management, electromagnetic interference (EMI), and band utilization considerations. This paper describes some approaches to addressing these challenges and achieving a useful system.