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Low-Power Reconfigurable Miniature Sensor Nodes for Condition Monitoring

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Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are being deployed at an escalating rate for various application fields. The ever growing number of application areas requires a diverse set of algorithms with disparate processing needs. WSNs also need to adapt to prevailing energy conditions and processing requirements. The preceding reasons rule out the use of a single fixed design. Instead, a general purpose design that can rapidly be adapted to different conditions and requirements is desired. In lieu of the traditional inflexible wireless sensor node consisting of a separate micro-controller, radio transceiver, sensor array and energy storage, we propose a unified rapidly reconfigurable miniature sensor node, implemented with a transport triggered architecture processor on a low-power Flash FPGA. To our knowledge, this is the first study of its kind. The proposed approach does not solely concentrate on energy efficiency but a high emphasis is also put on the ease of development perspective. Power consumption and silicon area usage comparison based on solutions implemented using our novel rapid design approach for wireless sensor nodes are performed. The comparison is performed between 16-bit fixed point, 16-bit floating point and 32-bit floating point implementations. The implemented processors and algorithms are intended for rolling bearing condition monitoring, but can be fully extended for other applications as well.

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Acknowledgments

This study was carried out in the InterSync project. The project is a part of the Finnish Metals and Engineering Competence Cluster (FIMECC) research program Energy and Life Cycle Cost Efficient Machines (EFFIMA). The project is also financially supported by the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (TEKES) and industrial companies. Their support is gratefully acknowledged. We would also like to thank VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland for co-operation and for providing the trial hardware for a complete mote solution.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

    Teemu Nyländen, Jani Boutellier, Jari Hannuksela & Olli Silvén

  2. Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

    Karri Nikunen

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  1. Teemu Nyländen
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  2. Jani Boutellier
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Correspondence to Teemu Nyländen.

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Nyländen, T., Boutellier, J., Nikunen, K. et al. Low-Power Reconfigurable Miniature Sensor Nodes for Condition Monitoring. Int J Parallel Prog 43, 3–23 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10766-013-0302-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10766-013-0302-5

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