engineering design day 2012 - College of Engineering @ The ...

WIRELESS poWERED SENSoR NETWoRk
Interdisciplinary Engineering Design Program
CLASS
ENGR 498A/B
SpoNSoR
Michael Marcellin
Hao Xin
SpoNSoR mENToR/ADVISoR
Michael Marcellin
Hao Xin
pRoJECT mENToR
Ivar Sanders
TEAm mEmBERS
Emily Adams (SE)
Ayman Albagshi (EE)
Khaleel Alnatar (SE)
Gregory Jacob (OSE)
Nathan Mogk (MSE)
Alexis Sparrold (EE)
EE = Electrical Engineering
MSE = Materials Science & Engineering
OSE = Optical Sciences & Engineering
SE = Systems Engineering
TEAm 4912: pRoJECT SummARY
Systems that monitor environments
often rely on cumbersome wires to
supply power to the sensing equipment
or batteries that require monitoring
and replacement. This system design
focuses on the creation of a wireless
sensor network with emphasis on the
implementation of wirelessly charged
sensing nodes by utilizing microwaves.
Three subsystems make up this “proof
of concept” wireless sensor system:
a power transmitting base station, three sensor nodes, and a communication
base station. The power transmitting base station transmits microwaves to the
nodes. Each node is composed of a rectenna, a power regulation circuit, an XBee
radio transmitter, and a supercapacitor. These nodes monitor the temperature and
humidity of the environment. The rectenna on the nodes converts the transmitted
microwaves into DC power. Therefore, the nodes must be compatible with the
rectenna provided by the project sponsors, Professor Marcellin and Professor
Xin from the University of Arizona. For the communication aspect of the system,
Zigbee protocol, which belongs to IEEE 802.15.4 protocol, was used as a wireless
communication protocol between the communication base and the node. This protocol
is implemented using XBee modules. Through the combination of power regulation,
microwave energy, and radio transmission, users are able to utilize this system to collect
environmental sensor data wirelessly.
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