6th International Conference on Sensor Network and Computer Engineering (ICSNCE 2016)

Design and Implementation of the Sensor Data Acquisition System

Based on Wireless Network Transmission
Boyuan Xu
Academy of Broadcasting Science State Administration of Radio, Film & Television, China
[email protected]

Keywords: Data acquisition with sensor; Wireless data transmission; Compaction degree; Nios II

Abstract. In the paper put forward a set of scheme that can be suitable for the sensor data
acquisition of the compaction degree in the construction of airport runway on the base of the study
of the wireless network transmission, sensor data acquisition, digital signal processing and other
key techniques, and at last to complete the digital data gathering scheme that will be integrated with
the sensor data gathering, wireless network transmission and PC data analyze module. Also the
scheme has the advantage of low cost, low power, miniaturization and high integration level, and it
could be used in many other situations that need the sensor data acquisition. At last the paper shows
the test conclusion in the real environment.

Introduction
Recently, as the development of the wireless communication, integrated circuit and sensor
technology, sensor technology based on wireless network transmission is booming rapidly, and
digital data acquisition terminal with the sensor being the key part has already been the most
important and direct ways for people to obtain the information in different situations. [1][2][3] The
main content of this thesis is to put forward a set of scheme that can be suitable for the sensor data
acquisition of the compaction degree in the construction of airport runway on the base of the study
of the wireless network transmission, sensor data acquisition, digital signal processing and other
key techniques, and at last to complete the digital data gathering scheme that will be integrated with
the sensor data gathering, wireless network transmission and PC data analyze module.

Data Data Data

acquisition processing Data transmission receiving

MPU- Sending Receiving

6050
Acquisition module DTU DTU PC
GPS
module

Figure 1. System structure of the design in the paper

In Fig. 1, shows that system in the paper is divided into three parts, including data acquisition
part, data transmission part and receiver software. At the data acquisition part, the collection
hardware is based on the FPGA board DE0-NANO with the additional circuit. A kind of FHSS data
transmission circuit is used for transfer the data from acquisition part to the receiver. The receiver
then complete data reception and analysis in Matlab software, that can be provide the reliable
compaction degree data in the construction of airport runway for the engineers.

Design of the Acquisition Module

Fig. 2 shows the system design in the paper with the hardware and software, and it has the features
as follows: [4] [5] [6]
© 2016. The authors - Published by Atlantis Press 129
 Nios Ⅱ software platform 8 LED Power
module

DTU Double
MPU6050
GPS DE0-NANO Double
FPGA hardware platform interface ultrasonic
sensor
RS-232
Additional
series
circuit
interface

Circuit board

Figure 2. Structure of the hardware and software in acquisition module

(1) Cyclone IV series EP4CE22F17C6N FPGA chip from Altera company is used as the
hardware platform, and it has 22320 LEs (Logical Elements), the main running frequency can be
500MHz.
(2) Software development platform is Nios II, development environment is Qsys from Quartus II
software.
(3) The base hardware circuit is completed with PCB design, and chip I/O can be connected to
the double MPU6050 modules by net wires.
(4) According to the apply circumstance, circuit power should be 12-24V DC, and power module
can be transfer it to 5V DC for the DE0-NANO and additional circuit.

Figure 3. Feature of MPU-6050 micro sensor system

The sensor chip adopts the MPU-6050 micro sensor system showed in Fig. 3, and it also shows
its electronic parameters. [7] Fig. 4 shows PCB design of the acquisition circuit, and it comprises
modules as follows:
(1) MPU-6050 micro sensor system used for data acquisition, with three directions acceleration
and angle acceleration data, that can be communication with processing unit through the I2C
interface protocol.
(2) The key circuit used for data acquisition has the functions of data reading, filtering and data
storage, the main hardware is FPGA chip.
(3) Power circuit module, series interface communication module and other additional circuits.

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 Figure 4. PCB design of the acquisition circuit

Data Transmission Module

Wireless data transmission is one of the most important parts in the design. According to the apply
requirement, data collected from the sensor should be transmit from the acquisition circuit to the PC
software receiver by the data transmission module. In the single transmission path, data
transmission module need complete the function of sending and receiving in single path, while in
the multipath transmission, module should send data from different nodes to the same one point in a
polling way. In the design adopts YL-800IL module used for wireless data transmission. YL-800IL
has the characteristic of high reliability and strong capacity of resisting disturbance, also it has low
power and long transmission distance. YL-800IL has CRC error correction function, and adopts
half-duplex communication way. [8] Users can send instructions to the module by the PC software
for changing running frequency, signal bandwidth and spreading factor in a flexible way.

Figure 5. Structure design of the data frame

In Fig. 5 shows the communication protocol in the design, in which frame head and the last byte
is defined with 0x55 and 0xAA in one byte. Different nodes can be defined by the flag byte, such as
0xEA, 0xEB, 0xEC and so on. Then connects 2 bytes used to define user data length, and user data.
In the design user data is defined in the application layer protocol, with four bytes used for time
stamp, one byte used for packet number and N data blocks (N=50 in the paper). While data
block is defined by the sensor data with 12 bytes.
Table 1 shows the physical layer parameters in the design, and the series interface is configured
with one check bit, one stop bit, and baud rate is defined with 9600.

Table 1 Physical layer parameters in the design

Parameter description
Baud rate 9600Bd
Sample frequency 50Hz
Numbers of data blocks in one packet 50bytes
Length of data block 12bytes
Length of data packet 605bytes
Length of data frame 611bytes

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Receiver and System Test
In this design, PC software for the receiver is completed by Matlab software, and it is used for
receive and analysis the data from sensor transmitted by the communication module. The analysis
data saved in files will be the reliable message for the follow study. Pic shows the work flow of the
receiver software.
After the test of sensor feature, system test is completed in the real apply circumstance that is
shown in Fig. 6 the impact roller compaction equipment used for building the airport runway. test
scheme is that install the sensor on the central axis of the roller compaction equipment, senor should
be mounted for steel contact in order to collect the effective data. Sensor connects with the
acquisition module with net wire, and acquisition board and wireless communication module is set
in the cockpit of the impact roller compaction equipment.

Figure 6. Method of sensor setting on the equipment in real environment

Fig. 7 shows the collected data plot by Matlab software. And it can be seen clearly that once the
equipment impacts runway, the acceleration data will accordingly jump, so the sensor data can
reflect the impacting processing of the equipment, and the system in the design can be effective to
gather data and transmit it to the receiver, then analysis the sensor data for the engineer to compute
the compaction degree data.

6 5

4.5
5
4

4 3.5

3
3
2.5
2
2

1.5
1
1
0
0.5

-1 0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 1950 2000 2050 2100 2150 2200 2250 2300 2350 2400 2450

Figure 7. Sensor data from receiver plotted by Matlab software

References
[1] KRETTEK, OTMAR，ADAMEC，et al. Detecting the Compaction Process by Diagnostics [J].
ZEV-Zeitschrift Fuer Eisenbahnwesen and Verkehrstechnik -Journal for Railway and Transport,
1999, 123(6): 229-236．

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[2] Lars Forssblad, Vibratory Soiland Rock Fill Compaction. Sweden. Stockhol.1981
[3] Chen H, Perrig A, Song D. Random Key Predistribution Schemes for Sensor Networks. IEEE
Symposium on Security and Privacy. Berkeley, California, 2003Reference to a book:
[4] Quartus II Handbook, www. Altera. Com.cn
[5] Cyclone IV Device Datasheet(cyiv-53001).pdf
[6] Nios II Software Developer’ s Handbook
[7] PS-MPU-6000/6500A.pdf
[8] JieXunYiLian-Long distance spread frequency module YL-800IL product sheet.pdf

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