01044054

Component

Recently, wireless sensor networks have been widespread embraced as an economic solution for large-scale monitoring applications, particularly in civil infrastructure. While the application of wireless sensors for such tasks offers reduced cost and setup time for layouts requiring widespread placement, most of these deployments are simply replacements for wired systems. Conversely, wireless sensors feature unrestrained motion, which extends their use beyond static monitoring to applications in which the sensor node travels throughout a region acquiring measurement data. The wireless node in development incorporates an array of dedicated sensors for inertial tracking such that the position and orientation of the sensor can be accurately determined. Complementing the motion tracking measurements are additional application specific sensors. This permits sensing on objects in motion and in regions that cannot be easily instrumented with traditional wired systems, such as in subsurface regions for the measurement of geotechnical parameters, with knowledge of instantaneous position relative to the initial location. This study presents an alternative approach to traditional coupled accelerometer and gyroscope-based inertial tracking that exclusively uses low-cost MEMS accelerometers. The revised architecture is anticipated to alleviate many of the issues plaguing inertial tracking that stem from the stability of derived orientation from gyroscope measurements as well as reduce the overall system cost. The development of wireless nodes for real-time wireless monitoring and tracking is pursued through the design of sensor boards interfaced with commercial wireless transceivers for remote spatiotemporal tracking in addition to application specific sensor sampling.

01042056

07-2412

English

11p

2007

Transportation Research Board 86th Annual Meeting

CD-ROM

Figures (5) ; References (7)

Accelerometers; Gyroscopes; Intelligence; Monitoring; Real time information; Remote sensing; Tracking systems; Wireless communication systems; Wireless sensor networks

Object detection systems; Spatiotemporal analysis

Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2007 Paper #07-2412

TRIS, TRB

Feb 8 2007 7:06PM