Industrial Sensor Frequency-Peak Transmission for Low-Power LPWAN
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing sensor devices for industrial facilities are expensive, power-intensive, and inefficient due to high data communication requirements, costly cabling, and limited range and penetration of conventional wireless protocols like 802.11x, making them costly and difficult to implement in industrial settings with many metallic obstacles.
Innovation Solution
A sensor device using a LPWAN protocol like LoRaWAN to transmit frequency domain data, with a power manager controlling power usage through wake and sleep cycles, and a signal processing component converting time domain data into frequency domain data for efficient data packet transmission, reducing power consumption and infrastructure costs.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Use of energy by moving object
If conventional wireless communication arrangements (802.11x, LTE, 802.15.4) are used for data transmission, then data communication capability is provided, but power consumption is high and device lifespan is limited to 2 years or several months
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the communication parameter from conventional high-frequency wireless protocols (802.11x at 2.4 GHz) to LPWAN protocol operating at lower frequencies, which reduces power consumption while extending device lifespan to 10 years or more
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements periodic wake-up and sleep cycles where the sensor device activates only during wake times to transmit data packets and remains in low-power sleep mode otherwise, significantly reducing average power consumption and extending battery life
2Length of stationary object
If conventional wireless communication arrangements (802.11x) are used, then data transmission is enabled, but transmission range is limited to less than 100m and penetration through metallic obstacles is poor
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the carrier frequency parameter from 2.4 GHz (802.11x) to lower frequencies used by LPWAN protocols, which improves transmission range and penetration capability through metallic obstacles commonly found in industrial facilities
3Loss of information
If all frequency domain data is transmitted in each wake time, then complete data is communicated, but data packet size becomes large and transmission efficiency decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and transmits only the most relevant subset of frequency domain data (e.g., top N frequency peaks) rather than all data, reducing packet size and transmission time while maintaining the essential information needed for operational analysis
4Measurement precision
If sophisticated sensor devices with full data processing capability are used, then measurement precision is improved, but device cost and power consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the data processing function, performing frequency domain analysis and data subset selection locally in the sensor device, while transmitting only essential results to remote facilities for further analysis, reducing device complexity and power consumption while maintaining measurement precision
Data Source
AI summary
A sensor device includes a sensor arranged to produce time domain data representative of a sensed time dependent characteristic adjacent the sensor, and a signal processing component, the signal processing component is arranged to use the time domain data to produce frequency domain data indicative of frequency components present in the time domain data. The sensor device also includes a data transmission component arranged to transmit at least a portion of the frequency domain data. The sensor device is arranged to select a subset of frequency domain data corresponding to a defined number of highest peaks in the frequency domain data and to transmit the selected subset of frequency domain data.