Self-Powered ZigBee Wireless Sensor Nodes for

Railway Condition Monitoring

SEMINAR REPORT

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the Degree of Bachelor
of Technology in Applied Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering of the University of
Kerala during the academic year 2017-2018.

Submitted by

SANDHUN P.S

Seventh Semester

B.Tech Applied Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering

Reg.No. 14400047

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING TRIVANDRUM 2017

 Self-Powered ZigBee Wireless Sensor Nodes for
Railway Condition Monitoring

SEMINAR REPORT

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the Degree of Bachelor
of Technology in Applied Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering of the University of
Kerala during the academic year 2017-2018.

Submitted by

SANDHUN P.S

Seventh Semester

B.Tech Applied Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering

Reg.No. 14400047

Guided by:
Prof. Sanoj Viswasom

Assistant Professor

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING TRIVANDRUM 2017

 DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS ANDCOMMUNICATION

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING TRIVANDRUM 2017

Bonafide Certificate

This is to certify that this seminar report entitled Self-Powered ZigBee Wireless
Sensor Nodes for Railway Condition Monitoring is a bonafide record of the seminar
presented by Sandhun P.S (Reg.No.14400047) under my guidance towards the partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the Degree of Bachelor of Technology in
Applied Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering of the University of Kerala during the
academic year 2017-2018.

Prof. Sanoj Viswasom Dr. Ciza Thomas Prof. Sajith Vijayaraghavan

Asst. Professor Professor and Head Asst. Professor
Dept. of ECE Dept. of ECE Dept. of ECE
College of Engineering College of Engineering College of Engineering
Trivandrum Trivandrum Trivandrum
(Guide) (Coordinator)
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost I thank the Almighty, without whose blessings I would never have
completed my work.
I express my deep sense of gratitude to my guide Prof. Sanoj Viswasom., Assistant
Professor, Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, College of
Engineering, Trivandrum, for his help, advice, support, constant encouragement and valuable
guidance.
I avail this opportunity to express my profound thanks to Dr. Ciza Thomas, Professor
& Head of Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, College of
Engineering, Trivandrum, whose encouragement was a great source of inspiration.
I express my sincere thanks to the seminar coordinators Prof. Sanoj viswasom and
Prof. Sajith Vijayaragahavan., Department of Electronics and Communication
Engineering, College of Engineering Trivandrum.
I would like to extend my gratitude to all other teachers in the Department of
Electronics and Communication Engineering, and to all my friends and family, whose
continuous support and inspiration helped me to accomplish this task.

Sandhun P.S.
 ABSTRACT

The seminar was based on a research article published on the IEEE Journals, titled
Self-Powered ZigBee Wireless Sensor Nodes for Railway Condition Monitoring. The
objective of the paper was to develop and analyze self-powered railway condition monitoring
system. A magnetic levitation based energy harvester is used for the mentioned purpose.The
need for railway condition monitoring is crucial. In this paper we use a series of wireless
sensors like Accelerometer, temperature sensor, humidity sensor, and infrared detector for
monitoring different parameters of railway and the accumulated data is transmitted using a
Zigbee network. And these modules are powered using a magnetic levitation energy
harvester. So the vibrational energy produced by track can be utilized to produce energy,
which in turn can power the modules.
 CONTENTS

Sl No: TITLE Page No:

1.INTRODUCTION 1
2.CHALLENGES FACED FOR TRACK MONITORING 2
3.PROPOSED MODEL 3
4.ZIGBEE WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY 4
4.1.Zigbee Architecture 4
4.2.Zigbee Operating Modes & its topologies 5
5.MAGNETIC LEVITATION ENERGY HARVESTER 7
5.1.Connection Modes 8
6.PROTOTYPE MODEL 9
6.1.Zigbee Wireless Module 9
6.2.Sensor Module 10
6.3.Power Supply Module 10
7. FREQUENCY SWEEPING VIBRATION TEST 11
8.RESULTS 12
9.CONCLSION 14
10.REFERENCES 15
 CONTENTS

FIG No: TITLE Page No:

1.PROPOSED MODEL 3
2.ZIGBEE ARCHITECTURE 4
3.ZIGBEE TOPOLOGIES 6
4.MAGNETIC LEVITATION ENERGY HARVESTER 7
5.CONNECTION MODES 8
5.PROTOTYPE MODEL 9
6.AMPLITUDE FREQUENCY RESPONSE 12
7.POWER MAP 1 13
8.POWER MAP 2 13
1.INTRODUCTION

Railways comprise a large infrastructure and are an important mode of transportation in

many countries. Railways are the lifelines of a country. The railways have become a new
means of transportation owing to their capacity, speed, and reliability, being closely associated
with passenger and goods transportation; they have high risk associated with them in terms of
human lives and cost of assets. The poor maintenance of the railways can lead to accidents.
New technologies for railways and better safety measures are introduced time to time but still
accidents do occur.
Thus, a proper strategy is required for maintenance and inspection of tracks.
Detection and maintenance of rail defects are major issues for the rail community all around
the world. The defects mainly include weld problems, internal defects worn out rails, head
checks, squats, palling and shelling, corrugations and rolling contact fatigue (RCF) initiated
problems such as surface cracks. If these defects are not handled and corrected they can lead to
rail breaks and accidents. There are numerous challenges to rail community and the
infrastructure maintenance people such as to perform effective inspection and cost effective
maintenance decisions. If these issues are taken care of properly, inspection and maintenance
decisions can reduce potential risk of rail breaks and derailment.
Current railway monitoring systems are very much advanced and efficient. But some
limitations of currently deployed system is causing serious headaches. In this seminar we will
discuss about the main drawbacks of current railway condition monitoring system. And will
discuss about the Zigbee base wireless system which is powered using an energy harvester.

1
2.CHALLENGES FACED FOR RALIWAY TRACK
MONITORING

Supplying power is the major concern. As we know in remote area it is difcult to

ensure power supply of rail-side monitoring equipment because wired power supply is not
available for railways deployed in these locations. If we use wireless power supply such as
batteries, it is also a big challenge for the maintenance and replacement of batteries in remote
or inaccessible locations. This is one of the major reasons for thinking of a self-powered
energy wireless sensor network for railway condition monitoring
Another important challenge is the huge investment needed to setup a conventional
old-fashioned railway monitoring system. In our Indian railway system almost all the
control system are done through Manpower. In this present condition we must have faced the
following problems such as : Wastage of time, Wastage of energy and Difficulty for a manual
operator. Also it is almost impossible for monitoring in remote areas.

2
3. PROPOSED MODEL

Figure 1:Illustration of self-powered ZigBee wireless sensor networks for railway condition monitoring

The proposed hardware prototype consists of a ZigBee coordinator at road-side and a

series of sensors (Accelerometer, temperature sensor, humidity sensor, and infrared detector)
connected to a ZigBee end device at rail-side. The ZigBee end device is powered by the
magnetic levitation energy harvester and communicated wirelessly with the ZigBee
coordinator. The whole setup is powered by magnetic levitation energy harvester. The signals
produced by the sensor modules are utilized for railway condition monitoring.
3
4 .ZIGBEE WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
ZigBee is a IEEE 802.15.4 based, low power, low data rate supporting wireless
networking standard, which is basically used for two-way communication between sensors
and control system. It is a short-range communication standard like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi,
covering range of 10 to 100 meters. The difference being while Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are high
data rate communications standard supporting transfer of complex structure like media,
software etc.,
ZigBee Technology supports transfer of simple data like that from sensors. It
supports low data rate of about 250 kbps. The operating frequencies are 868 MHz, 902 to
928 MHz and 2.4 GHz. ZigBee Technology is used mainly for applications requiring low
power, low cost, low data rate and long battery life.

4.1 .Zigbee Architecture

 Zigbee system structure consists of three different types of devices such as Zigbee
coordinator, Router and End device. Every Zigbee network must consist of at least one
coordinator which acts as a root and bridge of the network. The coordinator is responsible
for handling and storing the information while performing receiving and transmitting data
operations. Zigbee routers act as intermediary devices that permit data to pass to and fro
through them to other devices. End devices have limited functionality to communicate with
the parent nodes such that the battery power is saved as shown in the figure. The number of
routers, coordinators and end devices depends on the type of network such as star, tree and
meshnetworks.

Figure 2:Zigbee protocol architecture

4
Physical Layer: This layer does modulation and demodulation operations up on
transmitting and receiving signals respectively. This layers frequency, date rate and
number of channels are given below.
MAC Layer: This layer is responsible for reliable transmission of data by accessing
different networks with the carrier sense multiple access collision avoidance
(CSMA). This also transmits the beacon frames for synchronizing communication.
Network Layer: This layer takes care of all network related operations such as
network setup, end device connection and disconnection to network, routing, device
configurations, etc
 Application Support Sub-Layer: This layer enables the services necessary for Zigbee
device object and application objects to interface with the network layers for data
managing services. This layer is responsible for matching two devices according to
their services and needs.
Application Framework: It provides two types of data services as key value pair and
generic message services. Generic message is a developer defined structure, whereas
the key value pair is used for getting attributes within the application objects. ZDO
provides an interface between application objects and APS layer in Zigbee devices. It
is responsible for detecting, initiating and binding other devices to the network.

4.2 .Zigbee Operating Modes and Its Topologies

Zigbee two way data is transferred in two modes: Non-beacon mode and Beacon
mode. In a beacon mode, the coordinators and routers continuously monitor active state of
incoming data hence more power is consumed. In this mode, the routers and coordinators do
not sleep because at any time any node can wake up and communicate. However, it requires
more power supply and its overall power consumption is low because most of the devices
are in an inactive state for over long periods in the network.
In a beacon mode, when there is no data communication from end devices, then the
routers and coordinators enter into sleep state. Periodically this coordinator wakes up and
transmits the beacons to the routers in the network. These beacon networks are work for time
slots which means, they operate when the communication needed results in lower duty
cycles and longer battery usage. These beacon and non-beacon modes of Zigbee can manage
periodic (sensors data), intermittent (Light switches) and repetitive data types.

5
 Figure 3:zigbee topologies

Zigbee supports several network topologies; however, the most commonly used
configurations are star, mesh and cluster tree topologies. Any topology consists of one or more
coordinator. In a star topology, the network consists of one coordinator which is responsible
for initiating and managing the devices over the network. All other devices are called end
devices that directly communicate with coordinator. This is used in industries where all the
end point devices are needed to communicate with the central controller, and this topology is
simple and easy to deploy.

In mesh and tree topologies, the Zigbee network is extended with several routers
where coordinator is responsible for staring them. These structures allow any device to
communicate with any other adjacent node for providing redundancy to the data. If any node
fails, the information is routed automatically to other device by these topologies. As the
redundancy is the main factor in industries, hence mesh topology is mostly used. In a cluster-
tree network, each cluster consists of a coordinator with leaf nodes, and these coordinators are
connected to parent coordinator which initiates the entire network.

Due to the advantages of Zigbee technology like low cost and low power operating
modes and its topologies, this short range communication technology is best suited for several
applications compared to other proprietary communications, such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, etc.
some of these comparisons such as range of Zigbee, standards, etc

6
 5 . MAGNETIC LEVITATION ENERGY HARVESTER.

Magnetic levitation energy harvester is used to power the zigbee modules.The magneti
c levitation oscillator is used due to its broadband response characteristics.It is a dynamic syst
em with nonlinear restoring force.The energy harvester uses magnetic force to levitate an oscil
lating center magnet.The schematic diagram of a magnetic levitation system is shown in
figure:4. The device used two outer magnets that were mechanically attached to a threaded
support. The center magnet is placed between the two outer magnets and the magnetic poles
are placed in such a way to repel the pole

Figure 4:Magnetic levitation energy harvester

The energy harvester can produce a proportional voltage from track vibrations. That is
nonlinear restoring force. When there is passing of train through the railway,the rails are
subjected to its vibrations. This vibrations will be passed on to the energy harvesters that are
mounted serially or in parallel with the rails. thus due to these vibrations the levitating magnet
will oscillate about its equilibrium position ,thus producing a varying magnetic field. This
varying magnetic field will cut the copper coils wound around the system, producing an
induced emf. It is to be noted that an energy harvester cant power the modules directly. They
will charge the Li-ion batteries which in turn will power the modules.

7
 The dynamic system with nonlinear restore force as in the levitation case can be
written down in form of Dufng equation as follows

Where ; x is the displacement

t is time
w0 is the natural radian frequency
is nonlinear stifness parameter
is damping ratio

5.1 .Connection modes

Figure 5: Illustration of types of track-borne electromagnetic energy harvester

The energy harvesters can be connected to the rail in two ways, namely, serial
connection and parallel connection. We classify the parallel-connected track-borne
electromagnetic energy harvester in terms of voice coil, spring resonant, and magnetic
levitation(figure:5). In our case, as illustrated , the harvester devices were mounted to the rail
foot and subjected to the vibration generated by the wheelset/track system
.
For the serial conguration, the energy harvester is normally located between the rail
and sleeper, or between the sleeper and ballast bed; therefore, the existence of the serial-
connected device will change the track stiffness. For the parallel conguration, the energy
harvester is rigidly connected to the rail web or rail bottom; it is neither connected to the
wheelset nor to the rail sleeper, so we treat the parallel conguration as an added mass to the
rail, and calculate the resultant change of the rail mass and rail moment of inertia.

8
6 . PROTOTYPE MODEL

Figure 6 :Prototype model

6.1 . ZigBee Wireless Module

The ZigBee wireless module consists of a ZigBee coordinator and several ZigBee end
devices. The ZigBee coordinator is a full-function device (FFD) which takes care for network
formation and maintenance. The ZigBee end device can be either a FFD or reduced-function
device (RFD) and participates into the network.

The ZigBee hardware prototype includes a Systemon-Chip (SOP) chipset

CC2530F256 (Texas Instruments), a chipset PL2303, a SMA antenna connector, a 32 MHz
crystal, a USB port, an I2C (Inter Integrated Circuit) and a Serial Peripheral interface (SPI),
several LEDs, power on/offswitch, program/debugconnector,and other peripherals.
CC2530F256 is connected to the peripheral interfaces and to a standard SMA (sub-miniature
type A) connector with an external RF antenna

The Wireless Sensor Networks include three nodes: sensor node, router node, and
root node. The sensor node collects the data, the root nodes as the data sink is linked to the
base station, and the router node is an intermediate node to relay the data. The
communicationlink between the WSN is established by the ZigBee communication protocols,
which is operated as a multi-hop network. The Sensornet Protocol (SP) denes the routing
tree. Its exibility allows the choosing of the most reliable nodes for transmission by
periodically assessing the link quality to the adjacent ones.

9
 Now, a Full Function Device is that device that can do all the standards specified by
IEEE.While a Reduced Function Device (RFD) is that device that can perform only some of
the specified standards of IEEE.

6.2 . Sensor Module

The proposed hardware prototype consists of a series of sensors (Accelerometer,
temperature sensor, humidity sensor, and infrared detector) connected to a ZigBee end device
at rail-side. The ADXL series MEMS accelerometers (ADXL345 and ADXL1001) were used.
Take ADXL345 for instance, it is a small (3 mm5 mm1 mm LGA package) and ultralow
power (less than 350 W) 3-axis MEMs accelerometer with measurement up to 16 g. Digital
output data is accessible through either a SPI (3 or 4 wires) or I2C digital interface. It can
measure the static acceleration of gravity in tiltsensing applications and the dynamic
acceleration resulting from motion or shock. The ADXL345 is well suited for mobile device
application with high resolution (3.9 mg/LSB) measurement of inclination changes less than
1.0

6.3 . Power Supply Module

As said earlier, the energy harvester cannot directly power the zigbee modules. The
ZigBee node is powered by the Lithium-batteries and the energy harvester . Energy harvester
powers the Lithium-batteries and thus extends the operating time of overall system.
Furthermore, the alternating induced voltage of the electromagnetic transducer must be
converted to the stable DC output
The challenging of the energy conversion of electromagnetic harvesters is: 1) low
induced voltage. Bridge recties always have the forward voltage drop, and Schottky diodes
could be used to minimize the forward voltage to 0.3 V to 0.7 V; 2) power tradeoff. Since the
harvesters have limited power output, and for series regulator, the voltage difference across
transistors is large and the resultant power dissipation always surpasses the capability of the
harvester; therefore the switching regulator should be used, but the power distributed to the
oscillator and comparator must be carefully treated to keep the capability of the total power
output.We designed the energy conversion circuit with a fullbridge rectier and a DC-DC
boost converter. The circuit was connected to the electromagnetic transducer during the test.
Schottky barrier diodes BAT54LT1 were used to minimize the voltage drop-off .

10
7. TESTS :FREQUENCY SWEEPING VIBRATION TEST

To characterize the performance of the magnetic levitation harvester over a wide range
of frequency,We perform frequency sweeping vibration test. Sine sweep vibration tests are
used much more for research than for acceptance testing. They are used to determine certain
natural frequencies in structures, which should not coincide with excitation frequencies from
the environment or the device. If the frequencies do coincide, then an endurance test can be
conducted at the natural frequencies found. An endurance test is a form of fatigue testing.
Lloyds Register, Germanische Lloyd, and other classification societies use these.

In a sine sweep test, we attempt to simulate real world situations by increasing and
decreasing the vibration level. Some vibration standards which require a sine sweep vibration
test give the user/designer free reign in choosing the vibration level (with suggestions based
on possible applications).

However, in reality, the excitation is usually not a sine wave, but a much more
complex signal. Unlike in a sine sweep test, some frequencies are of a much higher level than
others. Excitation of these different frequencies typically occurs in parallel and not one after
the other, as in a sine sweep test. A random vibration test is therefore a much better reflection
of reality because it features the specific frequencies that can occur from, for instance, trains,
cars, aircraft, etc., as well as near railroad tracks, and they also occur simultaneously. This
interaction between such a varied and complex excitation and the natural frequencies and
vibration forms in a device or system can result in a completely different pattern of damage

Two frequency ranges (5 Hz200 Hz and 5 Hz 500 Hz) were chosen according to the
standard. The amplitude of acceleration was set to 1 g, 2 g, 4 g, and 8 g. The standard species
constant displacement amplitude below the cross-over frequency and constant acceleration
amplitude above the cross-over frequency. The number of sweep circles was 10 with the
sweep rate in 1 octaves/minute. The mass of suspended magnets was specied as 60.4 g,
121.7g, 182.9g, and 288g. Two integrated electronic piezoelectric accelerometers (IEPE) were
utilized. The one with sensitivity of 9.71 mV/(g) was xed on the vibration table as the control
signal of vibration excitation, and another one with sensitivity of 9.73 mV/(g) was attached to
the suspended magnets as the monitoring signal of dynamic response

11
8. RESULTS

Figure 7: Amplitude-frequency response of the magnetic levitation device (blue dot: stable periodic
solution; red dot: unstable periodic solution; = 0.5; =0.05; F=0.2).

The rail vibration velocity had the direct correlations with the generated voltage of
electromagnetic devices. The signals are nearly same in amplitude prole and opposite in
phase. Blue dot indicates the stable periodic solution, whereas red dot represents the non-
stable periodic solution. We take =0.05, = 0.5 as calculation parameters. It is observed that
a jump from the larger response to the smaller response (forward jump) or a jump from the
smaller response to the larger response (backward jump) might happen. The jump can be
trigger by implementing a mechanical or electrical perturbation

Also,compared with the linear resonance, the peak response of the nonlinear magnetic
levitation system locates away and no longer scales linearly. We could engage manually such
nonlinearities through adjusting the non-linear parameter and damping ratio of the
magnetic levitation harvester. The nonlinear restore force of magnetic levitation setup depends
on the space between magnets; and the damping force can be controlled by choice of coil
parameters and magnetic ux density. Based on the aforementioned analysis, magnetic
levitation harvester is preferred due to its nonlinear characteristics of extending the devices
response range for track energy harvesting.

Figures 8-9 show the power generation map of the magnetic levitation harvester with
suspended mass of 121.7 g, relative high position, 5000 numbers of turn, and surface magnetic
ux density of 0.5 T. The DC-DC converter can be enabled with a peak-peak voltage input
larger than 1.88 V. The power map records some of these points. The vibration velocity,
displacement, and excitation frequency are also plotted. The operation range of the harvester
extends with the increase of acceleration amplitude. At acceleration amplitude of 4 g and
cross-over frequency of 31.5 Hz, the harvester could offers
12
 Figure 8 : Power map of the energy harvester under 5-200 Hz frequency sweeping test with excitation
acceleration of 2g

Figure 9: Power map of the energy harvester under 5-500 Hz frequency sweeping test with excitation
acceleration of 4g.

13
9. CONCLUSION
This paper investigated the possibility of establishing a selfpowered wireless sensor
network by integrating the techniques of ZigBee stack protocol and energy harvesting. The
target was aimed at the railway condition monitoring,The following challenges and
observations are made.
1) In practical use, many factors could affect the RSSI and limit the communication distance
of the sensor nodes. The maximum installation distance between two nodes should be less than
20 m.

2) Geometric ones than EM effect. By potting all electronic components into aluminum
housing, the node is immune to the electro-magnetic interference of passing trains; but the
geometric blocking of passing trains could have an inuence on the sensor nodes. It is thus
recommended to mount the sensor nodes at the same side of railway track.

3).Vibration-based harvester cannot power the sensor nodes alone; battery together with power
management module is needed. The harvester could capture the vibration energy induced by the
travelling loads of vehicle and charge the batteries. Alternative energy harvesting approach such as
wind turbine energy generation by train induced wind could be considered as a supplementary
power source.

4) Track-borne system can be used to vehicles by adding GPS module. Same sensor nodes can be
mountedto several carriages. If the abnormal signals are found by all nodes at the same GPS
coordinate, the railway track at this point would be assumed as unusual; if the abnormal signals
are found by one node over a large range of region, the relevant vehicle-bogie would be checked.

14
10. REFERENCES

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15