A Ferrous-Selective Proximity Sensor for Industrial Internet of Things

A long-standing industrial problem is tackled with an industrial internet of things (IIoT) application. This thesis presents the hardware design and development of a wireless sensor network for monitoring ground engaging tools of earth processing equipment. This work addresses several challenges in the hardware design. The challenges included establishing wireless communications from within a metallic enclosure, Investigating the effect of antenna tuning on the link budget, designing a protective package for the sensor node (SN) to withstand vibrations and mechanical shocks, and creating a low-power design that allowed for a minimum battery life of one year.Furthermore, this work puts forward the design of novel application-specific sensors including a low-power ferrous-selective proximity sensor and a low-cost capacitive wear-level sensor.Hardware designs were evaluated with laboratory and field tests. The conducted tests demonstrated the SN's functionality and performance in harsh operating conditions. The journey from problem definition and to successful field testing of the complete wireless sensing solution is covered in this thesis.In addition, a novel energy-efficient approach to wireless real-time sensing is presented. For an SN transmitting samples of a discrete time-series in real-time, its DisclaimerThis work was made possible through the software developed by Galal Hassan. His work on the shovel project covered firmware development for the sensor node, software development for the sink, and setting up the back-end cloud server including the dashboard. Furthermore, Galal has contributed significantly to the success of the shovel project by developing an energy-efficient MAC protocol [1] which allowed for satisfying the life-time requirement of the sensor nodes.

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“…2. Design and implementation of a low-power ferrous-selective proximity sensor more suited for wireless sensors [35]. 3.…”

Section: Academic Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The reason for this clear distinction is that the neodymium magnet inside this sensor was chosen so that the anticipated proximity range of the bucket would cause it to saturate the FSR. This is explained in more details in [35].…”

Section: Proximity Sensorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wireless Sensing for Ground Engaging Tools

Ibrahim

Hassan

Hassanein

et al. 2020

GLOBECOM 2020 - 2020 IEEE Global Communications Conference

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“…In addition to robotics, the proximity sensors have application in various industries, such as mining, manufacturing, building automation, transportation and consumer electronics. The ability of proximity sensors to gratify common application needs in safety, fault detection, access control, motion control, quality control and interactivity makes them acceptable for their extensive use [ 2 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The sensor results had a good correlation with the mathematical model. The fabrication and the investigation of a ferrous-selective sensor (proximity) for the industrial internet of things was reported by Ibrahim et al [ 2 ]. This sensor was comprised of a force-sensing resistor and neodymium magnet.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Orange Dye and Silicone Glue Composite Gel-Based Optimized Impedimetric and Capacitive Surface-Type Proximity Sensors

Karimov,

Chani,

Fatima

et al. 2023

Gels

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Optimized surface-type impedimetric and capacitive proximity sensors have been fabricated on paper substrates by using rubbing-in technology. The orange dye (OD) and silicone glue (SG) composite-gel films were deposited on the zig-zag gap between two aluminum electrodes fixed on a paper (dielectric) substrate. The effect of proximity of various objects (receivers) on the impedance and the capacitance of the sensors was investigated. These objects were semi-cylindrical aluminum (metallic) foil, a cylindrical plastic tube filled with water, a kopeck-shaped plastic tube filled with carbon nanotubes and a human finger. The mechanism of sensing was based on the change in impedance and/or the capacitance of the sensors with variation of proximity between the surfaces of the sensor and the object. On decreasing proximity, the impedance of the sensors increased while the capacitance decreased. The impedimetric proximity sensitivities of CNT, water, metal-based receivers and the finger were up to 60 × 103 Ω/mm, 35 × 103 Ω/mm, 44 × 103 Ω/mm and 6.2 × 103 Ω/mm, respectively, while their capacitive sensitivities were −19.0 × 10−2 pF/mm, −16.0 × 10−2 pF/mm, −16.4 × 10−2 pF/mm and −1.8 × 10−2 pF/mm. If needed for practical application, the sensors can be built in to the Wheatstone bridge, which can also increase the sensitivity of the measurement. Moreover, the sensor’s materials are low cost, while the fabrication technique is easy and ecologically friendly. The sensor can also be used for demonstrative purposes in school and college laboratories.

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“…Proximity sensors have been employed across numerous existing and emerging fields such as robotic technologies, bio-electronic devices, parking sensors and human-machine interfaces [1], with an emphasis on a broad usage within industries like transportation, manufacturing as well as building automation and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) [2]. Since it is expected that the utilization of proximity sensors will increase even more, their power consumption has become a crucial attribute of such devices calling for more in-depth research and development of more energy-efficient sensors [3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

TheraProx: Capacitive Proximity Sensing

et al. 2022

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This paper presents the development of a novel contactless omnidirectional capacitive proximity sensor. The presented device has been designed to be energy-efficient (≈5 mW power consumption) by means of duty-cycling the power supply. A comprehensive methodological experiment has been carried out to extensively evaluate the performance within the sensing range (5–10 cm). A simple boot-up self-adjustment mechanism has been implemented using a digital potentiometer. This feature allows for an effortless utilization of the proposed device in a wide variety of potential applications, including mobile robotics and human–machine interaction.

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A Ferrous-Selective Proximity Sensor for Industrial Internet of Things

Cited by 5 publications

References 16 publications

Wireless Sensing for Ground Engaging Tools

Wireless Sensing for Ground Engaging Tools

Orange Dye and Silicone Glue Composite Gel-Based Optimized Impedimetric and Capacitive Surface-Type Proximity Sensors

TheraProx: Capacitive Proximity Sensing

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