Wireless Data Acquisition System

Vaibhav D Mehta, Rucha H Gajare, Minali P Jadhav

Department of Electronics and Telecommunication, Pillais Institute of Information Technology, Engineering, Media Studies and Research, India

Emails: vabs93@gmail.com, ruchagajare@gmail.com, minali.jadhav@gmail.com

Abstract - This paper introduces the wireless data acquisition system. Demand for data acquisition systems is increasing due to increasing industrialization with a need of producing the final product faster. All they need is a real time operating data acquisition system to collect the data from a huge area. It becomes quite difficult to create a network for collecting this data and feed them in automation system like PLC etc. The best way of creating such a network is using wireless technique. This can be done by setting up a Wi-Fi network and sharing the data over this network. This paper analyzes the implementation of such a network. I. INTRODUCTION In industry with having huge span, Agricultural area, security system and other practical application process, it often needs to test the site equipments video of particular area with audio and environmental. If the area is huge from where data is to be collected, then the best way of communication is wireless. The cheapest and effective way of wireless communication is through Wi-Fi. We just need to collect the data and share it over network. This can be done by collecting data through microcontroller and save that data in personal computer. Further on connecting that personal computer to Wi-Fi we can share the recorded data. There are some free utilities such as opera through which its possible to share data over Internet. Not only sharing, but even we can control the equipments by remote desktop the particular computer. The standard data acquisition system (DAS) contains three elements, acquisition hardware, storage unit and data transmission method. Acquisition hardware plays a key

role in the system which decides the performance of DAS. Most of the research is using personal computer as acquisition hardware. Further on with new technique the standard personal computer to high speed personal computer for better performance of data processing and transferring to storage unit. But the microcontroller based DAS is more popular platform since its low in cost and suitable for simple and small application. For cheap system we can use net book which saves lots of cost for storing and data transmission and sharing in Wi-Fi. Now days there are no serial ports in net books or laptops. Instead of that there are USB ports. Also data transmission speed is more as compared with serial ports. So to collect the data form acquisition hardware and store it in net book, the communication between them can only be done by USB. So we should use the Microcontroller which has USB communication or else serial to USB converter should be used. But for higher data transmission direct USB connection is preferred. Considering the microcontroller with USB communication available in market at a cheaper rate for basic requirement is from the Microchip which is PIC18F4550. Its cost is approximate 350 INR. It has 35 I/O ports, 13 internal ADC converter ports with resolution of 10 bits and lots of other features. If more ports are require then the PICs can be cascaded in master and slave configuration to work together. From this microcontroller data at the ports can be stored in memory card and can also be stored in net book for further operation. We will see further on W-DAS are discussed in seven sections. Section II consists of overall structure. Section III

Wireless Data Acquisition System

Vaibhav D Mehta, Rucha H Gajare, Minali P Jadhav
Department of Electronics and Telecommunication, Pillais Institute of Information Technology, Engineering, Media Studies and Research, India

Emails: vabs93@gmail.com, ruchagajare@gmail.com, minali.jadhav@gmail.com

explains the processor board. Section IV and V explains the software development and data transmission. Section VI shows the result and Section VII summarizes the overall research output

II. OVERALL STRUCTURE The wireless data acquisition system using PIC18F4550 is outlined in Figure 1. The processor board collects status of various sensors and updates all measurements and sends that data to host PC with USB communication.

Processor board consists of PIC18F4550 microcontroller which is manufactured by microchip. This microcontroller has great advantages which suites for data logging and also requires very less components. Due to this the overall processor board is quite simple, ease to maintain and cheap. The basic structure of processor board is shown below.

PC logs this data and stores it with time and date. PCs in the network communicated with host PC through Wi-Fi. Data log on host PC is shared using file transfer protocol (FTP), opera unit and web hosting. For real time viewing the data log at any remote location, PHP can be used through which by web can be used. The work of collecting data, monitoring and processing is done by host PC. With data acquisition, this technique can also be used for controlling the devises. This can be done with remote desktop or creating software through which PC to PC communication can be done. III. PROCESSOR BOARD

As per requirement it can be easily modified. In total PIC18F4550 has 35 Programmable I/O Lines including 10-bit 13-channel ADC. The microcontroller PIC18F4550 provides Booth uploading features. When boot upload is loaded ones in microcontroller, then we can program microcontroller directly through USB communication without removing controller from the circuit. Total power consumption is very less with long life. In certain case where we require more ports and have to process more data, we can use two microcontrollers in master slave configuration. The total cost of the processor board is approx 450INR.

IV. SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

Wireless Data Acquisition System

Vaibhav D Mehta, Rucha H Gajare, Minali P Jadhav
Department of Electronics and Telecommunication, Pillais Institute of Information Technology, Engineering, Media Studies and Research, India

Emails: vabs93@gmail.com, ruchagajare@gmail.com, minali.jadhav@gmail.com

From programming point of view, the software designing is divides in 2 parts. One is for the microcontroller and other is for the host pc to acquisition the data in to PC. The flow chart of data acquisition system is shown below.

V. DATA TRANSMISSION VI. RESULT