ZIGBEE BASED MONITORING SYSTEMS FOR ROLLING STOCK APPLICATIONS

Abstract

Wireless technology is making its impact felt in almost all walks of life. Be it home automation, building automation, street light control, utility metering or patient health care systems, all areas have begun to utilize wireless technology to advantage. The ZigBee technology has been developed specifically to target large adhoc wireless networks that need low intermittent data rates, low power/battery operation and a small physical footprint. The technology has admirably targeted wireless sensor networks and is emerging as the technology of choice for these applications. An area where the adoption of this technology has not been pervasive but holds great potential ,is rolling stock or railway vehicles. A train occupies a large geographical area and need for communication of information throughout the train can be immediately felt. This report puts forth certain areas of application of ZigBee technology on rolling stock. A system for monitoring of hot axles on railway coaches/wagons has been designed and implemented ,while some more applications in the same area are outlined in the report. A CC2530 SoC based ZigBee module is designed and developed and this forms the backbone of the above applications. This comprises of the CC2530 SoC mounted on a small PCB provided with two connectors that allow the module to be mated to the main application board. All the RF components including the antenna are provided on the module whilst the SoC power supply and port pins are available on the connector. Thus the same module can be used for different applications, by only changing the software programmed in the SoC and the hardware provided on the mating board. The report concludes that adoption of ZigBee technology on rolling stock would be a meaningful exercise with a diverse range of applications, limited only by the imagination of the designer.