Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Deniz Gurkan, Dr. Driss Benhaddou

Motivation

Various sensor standards have been used in different units even under the same department such as the DoD and JPEO (Joint Program Executive Office). Therefore, the mission statements have been updated to include an objective on the development of physical and electronic standards for sensors in CBRN (Chemical Biological Radiological and Nuclear) and MASINT (Measurement And Signatures INTelligence) systems. Since the operations are more net-centric, the sensor vendors desire to concentrate on the sensing rather than the infrastructure. There has been an increasing interest and convergence towards IEEE 1451 in working groups. This project is focused on the emerging standard, IEEE 1451, and its system demonstration in the Test bed of Smart Systems (ToSS). The test bed provides a venue for the dissemination of an open standard for the related sensor networking industry and the military research and development groups. The test bed will provide sensor interoperability tests and further advance the research on possible infrastructure architectures for military systems.

Project Description

The IEEE 1451 standard allows manufacturers to build interoperable elements of a system: Network Capable Application Processor (NCAP) is a gateway between user's network and Transducer Interface Modules (TIM). The test bed is composed of an interoperability and conformance tester node and other 1451 nodes. Sensors and various networking topologies can be integrated into the test bed also for performance measurements. The testing procedures are being developed under our dual use contract with NASA-SSC. Testing nodes will be created for an engine test stand with sensors and actuators connected to a decision support system.

Undergraduate Opportunities

Students can work on the development of sensor nodes that will monitor a rocket engine test stand with control sensors and actuators. Each sensor node will be loaded with historical sensor/actuator readings. The playback circuit will be a good experience for undergraduate students. They will be able to experience a project with higher level functionality.