XBee RF Modules Research Articles

Wireless Monitoring Prototype for Photovoltaic Parameters

Photovoltaic (PV) parameters monitoring is very important for the implementation and optimum utilization of solar energy as the electricity source. This work proposes a design of simple, cost-efficient, and low consumption wireless PV monitoring system enhanced by a driving software for recording the PV system parameters. The circuit is designed with a minimum number of components to manage four types of sensors to measure four parameters that are essential for real-time analysis and prediction of PV performance. The only pair of XBee RF modules as an active component, while others are passive, includes resistors and capacitors for PV current, and voltage those for signal conditioning, temperature and irradiance sensors were also involved. The paper presents a prototype system for high voltage series-connected PV array in the range (100-310) V and 3 ampere as a maximum current, while the sampling frequency can be configured up to 14 sample/Sec in applications of the short period for data logging for the four channels. The proposed system succeeds in providing real-time monitoring with lower cost and can be extended for more functions such as controlling tracking system and failure diagnosis.<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><em><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;" lang="EN-US"> Photovoltaic (PV) parameters monitoring is very important for the implementation and optimum utilisation of solar energy as electricity source. This work proposes a design of simple, cost-efficient, and low consumption wireless PV monitoring system enhanced by a driving software for recording the PV system parameters. The circuit is designed with a minimum number of components to manage four types of sensors to measure four parameters that are essential for real-time analysis and prediction of PV performance. Only pair of XBee RF modules as an active components, while othera are passive, includes resistors and capacitors for PV current, and voltage those for signal conditioning, temperature and irradiance sensors were also involved. The paper presents a prototype system for high voltage series connected PV array in the range (100-310) V and 3 ampere as a maximum current, while the sampling frequency can be configured up to 14 sample/Sec in applications of the short period for data logging for the four channels. The proposed system succeeds in providing real-time monitoring with lower cost and can be extended for more functions such as controlling tracking system and failure diagnosis.</span></em></p>

Aerial pruning mechanism, initial real environment test

In this research, a pruning mechanism for aerial pruning tasks is tested in a real environment. Since the final goal of the aerial pruning robot will be to prune tree branches close to power lines, some experiments related to wireless communication and pruning performance were conducted. The experiments consisted of testing the communication between two XBee RF modules for monitoring purposes as well as testing the speed control of the circular saw used for pruning tree branches. Results show that both the monitoring and the pruning tasks were successfully done in a real environment.

DC-based smart PV-powered home energy management system based on voltage matching and RF module.

The main tool for measuring system efficiency in homes and offices is the energy monitoring of the household appliances’ consumption. With the help of GUI through a PC or smart phone, there are various applications that can be developed for energy saving. This work describes the design and prototype implementation of a wireless PV-powered home energy management system under a DC-distribution environment, which allows remote monitoring of appliances’ energy consumptions and power rate quality. The system can be managed by a central computer, which obtains the energy data based on XBee RF modules that access the sensor measurements of system components. The proposed integrated prototype framework is characterized by low power consumption due to the lack of components and consists of three layers: XBee-based circuit for processing and communication architecture, solar charge controller, and solar-battery-load matching layers. Six precise analogue channels for data monitoring are considered to cover the energy measurements. Voltage, current and temperature analogue signals were accessed directly from the remote XBee node to be sent in real time with a sampling frequency of 11–123 Hz to capture the possible surge power. The performance shows that the developed prototype proves the DC voltage matching concept and is able to provide accurate and precise results.

Sharing Research Experiences Of Wsn Based Smart Home

Abstract We are pursuing our research on ZigBee based WSNs for more than 8 years; a lot of realization stories are conveyed in literature on the development of wireless measurement of sensors data using ZigBee (XBee RF module). Many projects are fruitfully completed for applications such as smart home for elder care, environmental monitoring, big building monitoring and so on. Still a lot of design issues are there while the systems are designed using ZigBees. In this research paper the working experiences which may support other researchers to achieve success without wasting resources are reported. Moreover, presented research analyses of some unusual observations made in a proto-typed smart home monitoring system have been discussed. Packet delivery ratio (PDR) and latency are among a few reliability issues that have been analysed and addressed in this article to make the system more robust.

Design and Development of Remote Communication System for Mines Detector Robot

This paper describes the design and development of remote communication system for mines detector robot. This project uses a PIC18F4580 microcontroller to control the robot movements and functions. A metal detector will be attached to the robot. The robot will have two operating modes; automatic and manual mode. In automatic mode, the robot will move according to a predefined track. When the robot is moving, the system produces feedbacks given by the sensors on the robot to the remote computer about the surroundings and when potential land mines are detected. In manual mode, the robot will be fully controlled by the remote computer for decision making process. All the controls and monitoring of data are displayed in a graphical user interface (GUI). The wireless module proposed is the XBee RF modules. The XBee modules were found to perform with optimum data transfer reliability at the range equals to 25% of its maximum communication range.

Development of a Small-Scale Research Platform for Intelligent Transportation Systems

In this paper, we propose and develop a small-scale research platform for intelligent transportation systems (ITSs). Our platform has four main parts, i.e., an arena, an indoor localization system, automated radio-controlled (RC) cars, and roadside monitoring facilities. First, to mimic traffic environments, we build an arena with a wooden floor, mock buildings, and streets. Second, to facilitate feedback control for trajectory following, an indoor localization system is set up to track the RC cars. Third, both autonomous driving RC cars and human driving RC cars are developed, based on an automated RC car design. The automated RC cars can receive control signals from a computer through an Xbee RF module and control the front and rear wheels through motors. A new control algorithm is developed to allow the RC cars to track predefined trajectories. Finally, we implement an example of roadside monitoring, which uses a fish-eye camera associated with advanced video processing for image segmentation, object identification, and tracking. Experiments are performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the designed platform. We also discuss possible ITS research problems that can be studied in this testbed.

Wireless Flight Data Recorder (FDR) for Airplanes

This paper is on the urgent need of today’s Aviation Sector which comes smart materials in airplanes. We have made wireless system i.e. a real time Flight Data Recorder (FDR) in which the data(Parameters like Engine Temperature ,Fuel Level, Speed ,Location (Latitude And Longitude)etc. ) getting stored in real time, in the plane’s FDR(commonly known as Black Box), same data will get transferred to our Personal Computer(PC) which is at ground. The data will be transferred via XBEE-RF Module( long range). Also, the Global Positioning System (GPS) device will send the Position coordinates logged by the micro-controller at periodic intervals. After processing the data, the data will be uploaded to the server via the GPRS/Internet Connection. The program resident on the server will process the data and map the position on a digital map. The digital map view can be accessed through and other PC’s using the Protocol, thus giving real time positioning and different parameters of the plane on ground. “This paper focuses on sufficient data for analyzing the air disasters as short term application, and reduction of air disasters as long term goal.”