An Investigation to Develop a Robust Wireless Network in Order to Increase the Probability of Legitimate Detections with a Sensor Network

Desiree Overcast

Abstract

The Bert Mooney Airport Authority (BMAA) and partners, Rocky Mountain Agile Virtual Enterprises Technical Development Center (RAVE TDC), Industrial Automation Controls, MSE Technology Applications, Imagination Engines Inc. and BBN Technologies are developing and deploying an autonomous sensor network to improve situational awareness at small regional airports such as BMAA. Cameras, a weigh-in-motion station and a radar field are the sensors that provide the system with its ears and eyes.

The entire sensor network is connected via a wireless network. While this provides an easy installation, it can be difficult to maintain a stable network streaming an immense amount of information. At the Bert Mooney Airport, our sensor network covers approximately 250 square meters. Due to the nature of an airport environment, there is a lot of interfering traffic in the 2.4 GHz range. The original design of the sensor nodes enclosures had the wireless antennas on top of the box, which sat about 4 ft off the ground. An initial test of connectivity from the control station proved that this antenna height would not be able to oversee the cars and buildings in the airport area. The wireless bridges, Linksys WET54GS, would have to be moved up the light poles where the nodes are plugged in for power. In order to do this I would need enclosures to put the bridges in as well as Cat5 Ethernet cable to run down and connect to the computer and or camera inside of the nodes. Dr. Donovan’s team at the Forge was contracted to design and build these enclosures. The enclosures had to be made out of fiber glass so not to interrupt the radar reflections/detections. Once the enclosures were all built and installed on the poles, I added conduits for the cable to run down the pole and into the node. The relocation of the bridges has enabled basic connectivity to all of the devices in the field.
In order to know if the wireless network is providing a sufficient connectivity, I will have to make sure that MatLab is getting all the necessary UDP packets from the radar.  The video stream of the cameras must be steady enough to track without error and the WIM data to be recorded to the HMI.

Biography

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