A mobile wireless sensor network platform for use with optical fibre sensors

Abstract

This paper presents a novel design of a system for using smart mobile robots to deploy a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) for different optical fibre sensors, allowing for potential applications where there is a remote and harsh monitoring environment and allowing for the advantages of the optical fibre technology for the sensor itself to be used. The platform which was designed is comprised of a smart mobile robot, an optical fibre sensor module and a WSN module integrated with a localization component based on Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI), which has important advantages for mobile sensing and tracking, flexible deployment and mesh networking. The design principle and implementation-related issues for the platform have been discussed in this study. To investigate the performance of the mobile WSN platform, an experiment simulating measurement in a real environment has been performed. With the positive experimental data obtained, the functionalities of the platform are successfully demonstrated, which enables the real-time monitoring and transmission of sensor data and in addition estimated positional information. The exploitation of this kind of mobile WSN platform with fibre optic sensors is expected to make an impact on many applications, including those where advanced optical fibre sensing is particularly advantageous, yet where conventional WSNs cannot meet the requirements of the total sensing system.