This thesis describes the development phases of a wireless part of an vessel monitoring and tracking system. Wireless part of the system is meant to be an extension to mentioned functionality, providing the necessary simplification of measured quantity, because it alows the wireless unit to be placed right next to the device in question.
In addition to the electrical measurements, we also added an environmental sensor, which measures temperature, humidity and air pressure. These measurements could be useful to a certain amount of users, for instance to measure the temperature inside the engine compartment or to alert user of risk of freezing, especially in winter time. On the other hand, some users might just be interested in those measurements as an added value to the current set of measurements.
We dedicated somewhat substantial portion of the hardware and firmware development cycle to wireless mesurement units' autonomy. The main objective was for the autonomy to last at least one year. By various improvements and careful selection of electronic elements, we made a wireless unit with roughly two years worth of authonomy. Second important aspect during development phase, was the possibility of mounting only certain sensors to the board. Based on demands from the market, we would produce more units with, for example, only environmental measurements, instead of sensors with all elements mounted on the board.
Development is divided into several segments. At the beginning there are some basic explanatons about the current system and reasons for wireless node development. Next, we present the requirements for wireless units, followed by a section, in which we described some theoretical background behind the wireless protocol we used. The middle two sections are used to describe the phases of hardware and firmware development cycles of both sides of wireless part of the system. Lastly, there are some current consumption measurements of the wireless units and a few possibilities for future development.
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