Integrated hardware interfaces for modular sensor networks

Portilla, Jorge; Castro, Ángel de; Abril, Ana; Riesgo, Teresa

doi:10.1117/12.723773

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…For that end, dynamic reconfigurable devices such as FPGAs play an important role because they can add flexibility to the sensor node. In this context, an important approach developed in Spain is the Cookie platform [ 4 , 19 , 66 , 67 ], a modular device that has an innovative WSN node architecture. This modular platform is divided into four functional layers: communication, processing, power supply and sensing/actuating layer.…”

Section: Sensors Systems Based On Fpgasmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Survey on FPGA-Based Sensor Systems: Towards Intelligent and Reconfigurable Low-Power Sensors for Computer Vision, Control and Signal Processing

García

Jara

Pomares

et al. 2014

Sensors

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The current trend in the evolution of sensor systems seeks ways to provide more accuracy and resolution, while at the same time decreasing the size and power consumption. The use of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) provides specific reprogrammable hardware technology that can be properly exploited to obtain a reconfigurable sensor system. This adaptation capability enables the implementation of complex applications using the partial reconfigurability at a very low-power consumption. For highly demanding tasks FPGAs have been favored due to the high efficiency provided by their architectural flexibility (parallelism, on-chip memory, etc.), reconfigurability and superb performance in the development of algorithms. FPGAs have improved the performance of sensor systems and have triggered a clear increase in their use in new fields of application. A new generation of smarter, reconfigurable and lower power consumption sensors is being developed in Spain based on FPGAs. In this paper, a review of these developments is presented, describing as well the FPGA technologies employed by the different research groups and providing an overview of future research within this field.

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Section: Sensors Systems Based On Fpgasmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Survey on FPGA-Based Sensor Systems: Towards Intelligent and Reconfigurable Low-Power Sensors for Computer Vision, Control and Signal Processing

García

Jara

Pomares

et al. 2014

Sensors

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“…Detailed information about the interfaces is available in our paper. 6 This library is used on the modular platform for WSNs, and makes the sensor almost transparent for the user, who always sees the same signals independently of the sensor being used. Exhaustive simulations have been carried out and experimental tests have also been conducted for every module in the library.…”

Section: 1117/212007110851 Page 2/3mentioning

confidence: 99%

Rapid prototyping for multi-application sensor networking

Portilla¹

2007

SPIE Newsroom

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Developing integrated hardware interfaces for different actuators allows rapid and easy integration into existing wireless networks.Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have become widely relevant in recent years, facilitating data collection through a large number of nodes measuring different physical parameters in various environments. Such networks require low power consumption in the individual sensors and adequate protocols for communication between the nodes. Effective platform hardware design is also crucial. Key features of the technology are the ubiquity of these systems, the need for transparency to the end user, and the variety of predicted applications. Because so many possible applications exist, using WSNs to their fullest potential depends on our ability to adapt new applications to existing platforms.Rapid prototyping can assist in the process of adapting applications to current platforms. However, one of the main obstacles to this approach is that sensors have heterogeneous interfaces. Some of the numerous different transducer (sensor/actuator) interfaces currently in existence, such as the inter-integrated circuit (I2C), are very popular. However, there will probably never be a single common interface for all types of transducer because of commercial interests and special features. Therefore, when adapting a new sensor, most of the work must be done from scratch, making it difficult to develop applications quickly. This is the problem we are trying to solve.Here we propose a very high speed integrated circuit (VH-SIC) hardware description language (VHDL) library for sensor and actuator interfaces. The purpose is to have a set of interfaces that accommodate the most common sensors and actuators, enabling rapid connections to new equipment. Moreover, the concept presented here may be used for new interfaces that can be easily developed. The VHDL implementation is independent of the final platform; any field-programmable gate array (FPGA) or application-specific integrated circuit may be used. This min- imizes redesign effort and makes rapid prototyping easier. The interfaces are installed in a hardware platform for sensor networks developed at our institution.Hardware node design becomes critical in WSNs for meeting the requirements mentioned above. Modular hardware nodes are often used to make rapid prototyping easier, as well as to allow for quicker redesign and the ability to reuse some of the hardware modules. [1][2][3] With this approach, it is easy to redesign the platform to adapt the system to different scenarios and applications. This concept was developed in our research group's previous work, and our modular platform is available for research and development. 4 Figure 1 shows the four-layer platform, the main features of which are modularity, low cost, medium size, and easy adaptation to different applications.This modular platform is divided into four functional layers: communication, processing, power supply, and sensing/actuating. The processing layer includes a microcontroller and an FP...

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A reconfigurable flight control system architecture for Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Deng

Zhu

2012

2012 IEEE International Systems Conference SysCon 2012

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Integrated hardware interfaces for modular sensor networks

Cited by 3 publications

References 9 publications

A Survey on FPGA-Based Sensor Systems: Towards Intelligent and Reconfigurable Low-Power Sensors for Computer Vision, Control and Signal Processing

A Survey on FPGA-Based Sensor Systems: Towards Intelligent and Reconfigurable Low-Power Sensors for Computer Vision, Control and Signal Processing

Rapid prototyping for multi-application sensor networking

A reconfigurable flight control system architecture for Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

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