Self-powered event-triggered wireless sensor network for monitoring sabotage activities

Abstract

A self-powered event-triggered wireless sensor network was developed for monitoring sabotage activities. The network has the capability of identifying suspicious activities and automatically sending out alarming signals. The sensor network consists of self-powered wireless alarming sensor nodes (SWASNs), router nodes, receiver nodes, GSM network and PC terminal. The SWASN is powered by a novel vibration-threshold triggered energy harvester (VTT-EH), which generates significant electric energy to power the sensor node only when the input vibration amplitude excesses a certain threshold. With the event identification capability, the SWASN sends out alarming signals to router node if sabotage activity occurs. The alarming signal is then transmitted to the receiver node and the control center through GSM network. The GSM network is used in the proposed network to achieve long distance transmission and the capability of handling large amount of sensor nodes over large areas. The developed sensor network was tested. The results show that the designed function was realized. The proposed sensor network can be used in various applications of activity monitoring in the field.