Remote Telemetry With Your PC? 86
hyacinthus asks: "For some projects I'm working on, I'd like a system for acquiring data (as from the output of an instrumentation amplifier) from a module that would be separate from a PC, a maximum distance of perhaps several hundred feet at most, and the use of cable or wire is not an option. My bandwidth requirements are very small--perhaps a hundred 12-bit samples per second would do it. I would like the data acquisition module to be as small as possible. And I'd like the possibility of acquiring data from more than one module, rather like a multiple-channel data acquisition system." Are there any radio-based PC products that can be adapted to suit this sort of task?
"Commercial data acquisition products for personal computers all tend to be rather spendy, and none that I've seen make any provision for wireless telemetry. I've been considering designing and building something, probably using one of the commercial available USB development kits (see, for example, ActiveWire's USB board). But I'm no electrical engineer (a few digital design classes and some self-teaching from Horowitz and Hill, and that's it), so I'd like to ask if there's anything out there which does what I want."
guerrilla.net (Score:1)
I'm Sure X10 has a device or two (Score:1)
Couple options from someone who's been there.. (Score:4)
There's a bunch of solutions out there if you want to be a little crafty, and most of it is just limited by how much you want to spend and how reliable you need the data transfer to be (as you can guess.. the two are linked :).
A couple people have suggested a laser link. I built a small one for experimenting using a UART and some of the schematics from the book Lasers, -Ray Guns & Light Cannons ISBN: 0-07-045035-8. (Someone better buy it because I had to dig through two years of crap to find it! :) I got the lasers from some surplus place cheap. It worked well at 2400 baud or something like that, I was trying to build a circuit to act as a wireless point-to-point link to get high speed internet just slightly off campus (e.g. through my lab window to a buddy across the street :). It worked well, although I ran out of time to finish it. Think I was planning on selling them to build cheap point-to-point links at the time, or something. Hard to aim, though. Anyhow.
Another way is through wireless modules like the folks at Lynx Technologies or Parallax Inc [parallaxinc.com]. The parallax ones are of better quality right out of the box, and they'll sell to individuals, the former was nasty to me when I wanted to order some samples.
YET another way is through using Ham Radio and packet. You can get an all - in - one unit from Kenwood [kenwood.net] called the TH-D7A that is a small handheld with a 9600 baud TNC built into it. It's truely plug-and-play. Extremely expensive at $550cdn a pop, I know, I have one. You also need to be liscened to operate at these frequencies, and most/all places won't sell you one without your callsign or liscence. These work VERY well.
That said, one of those options will be the best for you. IR is out as it doesn't work worth a damn in direct sunlight, even laser detectors have a bit of a problem with sun. Sun is a great source of optical noise :). If I was needing something mission critical and a long distance, your best choice is the kenwood/packet option, or maybe the parallax modules. They hook right up to a serial port.
Alternately, you could just get a cheap 486 notebook and get a 802.11 card, and wire the whole thing to a big-ass car battery (find one that takes 12V, and make sure to put a fuse on it!). That might be cheaper in the long run, and will provide a lot of bandwidth.
Hope that helps.
Only hobbyists... (Score:4)
If your application is professional or you want dead accuracy, please do not do this. How calibrated is that input amp? How about noise? What if you have to manually calibrate?
If you must use a laptop, NI sells some cool PCMCIA cards for this sort of use. Expect to pay for it, though.
That said, I'll have to mention that any x86 is probably overkill. I'd likely use a PIC and some choice Analog Devices chips. They are dirt cheap, and would be much easier to make immune to noise. You can control the whole design, which is a good thing. The less bloat, the less chance of interference.
For extremely critical apps, you'd probably end up doing some expensive testing, but you'd end up doing that for anything off-the-shelf anyway.
As for the data transport, if the speed isn't critical, you could do this [microchip.com]. Just pick a frequency that you can use freely and make sure that nothing else around will interfere with the signal.
There are also a lot of other ways to do it. Radio is cheap to do, and more fault-tolerant than IR.
Look around, you might find something else.
Check out Circuit Cellar (Score:2)
Basically it's a one-way RF network where each sensor (doesn't really matter what kind) has a cheap RF transmitter and a uC. They're using a Poisson distribution to create pseudo-random transmission intervals for each sensor, so that the likehood of collisions is minimized, since there's no network master, only a receiver that aggregates all valid transmissions it receives. The nice thing is that the per-node cost can be extremely low, depending on what kind of sensor you have.
Email me if you want some more details or some help on getting your hands on the article.
This can be cheap and practical... (Score:1)
I have to say that this is your best bet, because it doesn't rely on line of sight, doesn't mess with 802.11, and is cheap. Also, because RS232 is the standard for many types of telemetry, it will most likely work with whatever data-gathering equipment you use. It is up to you which model and quality to use, based on your budget and other requirements.
You might check http://tflow.com/boards.html [tflow.com] (bottom of page) for a start -- they have prices on their page. These prices are about what to expect anywhere you go. We, however, went through ABACOM Technologies [abacom-tech.com] when we got one of our radios (the cheaper, but very functional one). Their webpage is somewhat substandard, so you might not find the RS232 radios on it. I know that they sell them though, and you can call them asking for P/N RTcomTx-RS232 (Transmitter - $87.15 canadian) and RTcomRx-RS232 or (Reciever - $105.52 canadian). There are tons of other places to get it from on the net (digikey [digikey.com] *might* have some, but I haven't checked).
Telemetry - ass-backwards (Score:1)
Ricochet Wireless modems (Score:1)
Each modem has a "modem number" on the back and you just "ATDTXXXX-YYYY" to dial another Ricochet modem. The other side even sends the "RING" string, and you use "ATA" to answer. Totally transparent to whatever application you are using. These are truly wireless modems.
Although they are tough to get (either through ebay [ebay.com], or Metricom [metricom.com] with a 1 year signup), they are the most amazing devices. I have two, and they cost me about $120 a piece. They are pretty funny to use with TI calculators and a Graphlink.
-Justin
Small Bandwidth? Yer arse... (Score:1)
My bandwidth requirements are very small--perhaps a hundred 12-bit samples per second would do it
You call that small bandwidth? Only five years ago I was controlling a 24-turbine power station over a 1200 baud UUCP link -- and liked it!
Wireless (Score:1)
You could couple this with something like Dallas Semiconductor's TINI - a microprocessor, RAM, EPROM, and Ethernet controller that runs Java. (www.tini.com)
The TINI device would be wired to acquire the data, and send it to the collecting server via Java's Remote Method Invocation protocol, or some other TCP/IP based protocol of your own design. With an wireless Access Point on the PC server and a wireless Client Access Bridge on each data acquition device you'd be able to meet all your requirements.
The TINI hardware is very inexpensive. The wireless ethernet hardware will be considerably more. I don't know the brand name of the hardware Fanuc is using but I could check if you're interested.
Jeff McWilliams
Software Architect
ACE Technologies
Jeff.mcWilliams@acetechnologies.net
Radio Shack (Score:1)
guitar wireless... (Score:2)
Sounds like a few modifications to a cheap guitar wireless unit would do it. They even got some close-outs at Nady [nadywireless.com].
KISS (Score:2)
Re:Smoking dope (Score:1)
You need to read about the IPic match-head sized web server [umass.edu].
The author claims RFC-1122 (host requirements) compliance and telnet and web servers in 1K 12-bit words.
Having said that, I suspect a simple, application specific protocol would be more effective in this case.
AirShare modules (Score:1)
RC Car using AirShare [cornell.edu]
Re:Is is line of sight? (Score:1)
Re:Product plug :-) (Score:1)
Fieldpoint consists of a number of modules connected to a central PC.
There are a number of different modules including:
And so on. Extremely tough Distributed DAQ or I/O solution - obviously more expensive than breaking out your soldering iron, but then again, you don't need to spend the rest of you life figuring how to do it all
Re:gatewayelex.com (Score:2)
see packet radio modem kit [gatewayelex.com] it's $59 for one end.
I know they have "ming kits" too, but they do not appear to be on the web page. geez, i wish someone in st. louis would learn php or something.
oh yeah... (Score:2)
Ramsey has just what you want (Score:3)
They have micro telemetry/control transmitters and receivers good for a few hundred feet (maybe a bit more). They're probably not the only source for these particular units, but since I just saw them in the new catalog, I thought I'd mention it.
Part numbers RXD-433, TXE-433.
Data Modelling (Score:1)
For your purpose, the German SCOPE program seems to be the best choice.
Contact the University of Karlsruhe and/or the City Hall of Duesseldorf, both Germany.
The data are processed to a 3D model, with extrapolation and accuracy scalable by you.
The program also generates output that can be used to control a movement over (or through) the terrain.
So it can be used for cruise-missile like steering.
It also makes it possible to extrapolate in time, to predict ground-water flow.
I had the "fun" to port this from a UNIX mini-super (2 PR1ME machines) to an IBM ES/9000 running MVS/ESA.
If you contact the City Hall of Duesseldorf [duesseldorf.de], dept. of Environment, they sure can help you with data aquisition issues.
I worked in the central IT dept., and the department of environmental issues [duesseldorf.de] is using the program,
including gathering data from different sources with different methods.
--
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if you can live with 4 wires go NIODE (Score:2)
RF Monolithics (Score:1)
If you want to connect multiple devices on the one frequency, then you have to have a transmitter and receiver at each unit, and have the master run a polling loop. So that all gets a bit tricky.
Another alternative is Bluetooth. Magical, but still forthcoming, and still very expensive at the moment.
I've done this. (Score:1)
The chain of devices I used went like this:
Good Luck!
Parallax stuff (Score:1)
Re:Simple laser line of site (Score:1)
SCADA (Score:1)
That's one good example of whats available to do what you want to do. Their gear will interface between your sensors and the transmission media (wire, radio, whatever).
If the Zetron stuff interests you then contact your local two way radio company (most sell zetron) and if they can't help you contact Mountain Communications at 208-263-8226 and ask for Thor.
Freewave modem and DataQ input converter (Score:1)
To translate the input of a device with a varying voltage (Pressure, temperature, etc transducer) we use a little device from Dataq www.dataq.com [dataq.com] part number DI-194 which converts the signal into a serial stream. This device has 4 channels so it can be hooked up to more than 1 sensor. Then we use a radio modem from Freewave www.freewave.com [freewave.com] which is expensive but incredibly robust and reliable. These modems do NOT need a license as long as their output power measured at the antennae is under 1 Watt. The pre-built modems are very expensive but the OEM modules are cheaper if you want to build your own box with the DI-194 inside which is what we do.
Re:or how about tornado telemetry? (Score:1)
Re:I've done this. (Score:1)
The sensor COULD have its own PC.... (Score:1)
A slightly pricey ($2100 or so) solution: the Tiqit matchbox PC - a 486 in 5 cubic inches [slashdot.org]. I saw these at PCExpo last year, and it _really_ looks like a solid solution for putting a remote instrument out there. Since it has an internal disk, you can even keep the data streams local and handle your sensors over the serial ports. It'll run a light kernel quite happily, too.
the other $600 is for a 1.2M or 2M wireless ether node (used or clearanced as the Lucent 11M parts obsolete the 2M), and a wireless card for the management PC. It's pricey, but you end up with a self-contained PC that should be able to handle a ridiculous number of sensors. If you need realtime, it gives you the option of using 1M, 2M or 11M ether (11M ether is still _quite_ expensive for the 'hubs'), or locally storing the data on the acquisition device if realtime isn't an issue.
Re:Is is line of sight? (Score:2)
Audio ~ Data (Score:2)
I.e. From the Film "Twister" (Score:1)
Light Beam Communicator (Score:2)
Connect a four-wire leased line modem to it and you have a two-way data link. (Many modems have "leased line" mode, but a four-wire has separate audio wires for send and receive -- you can convert a phone modem to four-wire by building a phone-to-audio converter, which might be as simple as plugging in a telephone and battery)
Is is line of sight? (Score:1)
All we need... (Score:3)
...and we could vaporize a human target from space!
Yeah, *sure*, that's why you want it. We believe you...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
WinDAQ springs to mind... (Score:4)
I just have to ask: why does the PC have to be so far away? Are these experiments dealing with strong electromagnetic phenomenon? If so, then I'd understand, but otherwise, several hundred feet would seem paranoid.
Freewave (Score:5)
Unfortunately they are a little expensive at about $1200 per radio.
serial cable (Score:3)
Cheers!
-Eric
Simple laser line of site (Score:4)
Anyone have any schematics? An old Popular Electronics hacked up two laser pointers to make a simple wireless transmitter/receiver for voice (the microphone modulated the amplifier feeding the laser I think). Anyone up to modifying it for 9600 baud data?
Dan
dan_linder.at.yahoo.com@somewhere.else
(Remove the "@somewhere.else" and replace ".at." with "@" to e-mail me.)
I personaly (Score:2)
It doesn't require line of sight, so its not like Infra-red, and you could probably get disant bandwidth (9600 baud)
you could most likely get the parts from a disected UHF remote-control.
well... (Score:1)
Of course...ethernet cable would work just fine for distances over a hundred feet....as long as it is less that 1500 ft (or whatever the max for ethernet cable is) That would offer excellent speed and would be useful for other things as well.
NASA Tech Briefs (Score:1)
In fact, there is a package called LabView [ni.com] which is extensible and many data collectors provide modules to LabView with their sensors. LabView is predominantly a Windows [flyingbuttmonkeys.com] product, but don't let some folk's bias get in the way of work. [Note: I'm not a Windows fan, but will use it when required or if it's the right tool for the job, which it is for things like data collection.]
I cannot attest to cost, but merely to the fact that advertising in TechBriefs has even stuck with someone who has no interest in scientific data collection, like myself. Cheers. ----- Want intelligence? Go to Stratfor.com [stratfor.com]. If it's in the news, it's too late.
My Spidey-sense says: (Score:1)
--
Innomedia / Sima 85Kbps bidirectional radios. (Score:1)
I've heard that the Innomedia radios were available at Fry's for a while for 150$ a pair.
I've found a place selling the Sima equivalent for 250$ a pair. http://www.pontech.com/products/sima/
There is an article at http://www.seattlerobotics.org/encoder/200011/mod
I imagine that one of the small computers-on-a-chip could be used to sample the data, and send it up to your computer.
These radios also appear to be able to support one to many connections, but not simultaneously.
I'd like to build a mobile robot based on a pair of these. The hard part will be finding an open-source friendly USB webcam.
Please excuse the rambling nature of this post, Its been a long day.
What I would use... (Score:4)
1) Set up an RTU data recording device and attach it to each sensor collection point. Depending on the type of sensors you use (0-2.5V. 4-20 mA, RS-232 "smart sensors", etc...), you should be able to find a relatively inexpensive Datalogger/RTU that fits the bill. If it is to be located in a harsh environment (outdoors, cold, etc.), make sure you have a board and enclosure suitably rated for such conditions (you can find severe environment units from www.lakewood.com).
Next, get an RS-232 -> Ethernet device. ZWorld had a spiffy programmable one that can be found at http://www.zworld.com/emseries.html.
Finally, get an 802.11 wireless device and connect it to the ethernet output of the RS-232 -> Ethernet "modem".
The nice thing about this setup is that you don't need any crazy serial input boards or wireless RS-232 devices. Everything comes in through a nice packet switched TCP/IP network. This is a blessing for keeping the end user software simple and stable.
2) One other possible solution is to do all of the above, but with one change. Instead of the RS-232 -> Ethernet device and the 802.11 connections, simply attach a Mobitex, CDMA, or CDPD wireless device to the RTU's. Granted this has some more cost associated with the mothly fees, but most carriers have lower cost "data only" packages without all of the crappy consumer features that you have no need for. And again, this has the benefit of a packet switched connection. As well, if your sensors are REALLY far apart, this might be the most economical solution in the long run due to the extra cost of "repeaters" and such. Plus, most of these types of devices already have the capability to connect to RS-232 components without extra hardware. And, if you're lucky, you can get the whole package in a 99 dollar heavily subsidized digital phone from your favorite carrier
Just my humble opinion, from a humble man who has done these things before
Feel free to contact me on ICQ 34034928 if necessary. My listed e-mail is a fake
"You should read my new book: Humility, and how I attained it with 343 Illustrated Pictures of the Author."
Re:NASA Tech Briefs (Score:1)
Run time licenses are free, and there are thousands of drivers [ni.com] for different types of hardware, some of which would be useful for this wireless data acquisition application. Of course, the FieldPoint [ni.com] system that another NI employee mentioned above is designed to be controlled easily with LabVIEW.
Finally, though LabVIEW is primarily used on the Win32 platform, most of its features are available on other OSes, including Linux [ni.com].
Linx Technologies (Score:1)
Re:I've done this. (Score:1)
I have been wanting to do this... but using a TINI board instead of the Stamp.
Smoking dope (Score:2)
Re:Is is line of sight? (Score:1)
Ever see an Imax 3D movie? They use IR transmitters--about 10 banks of 50 LEDs each--to flood the large theatre. The signal sends data to the glasses which tell the LCD shutters which side should be on/off.
In a smaller room, a single bank of 10 IR LEDs should do it. I control lots of things around the office with IR. If your ceiling reflects IR well, just have a bank of 10 LEDs pointing up and you can fill a big room.
You can transmit regular serial data (with some error checking code) and use an IR reciever module (look for Vishay and Sharp as suppliers) that outputs TTL levels which your serial port may be able to handle directly or with a small interface.
IR "bits" at slower rates are generally transmitted as pulses of a 35-45 kHz tone. While many standards are self-clocking for reliability, you can send regular serial data, the presense of the tone for "mark" and the absense for "space"
Re:serial cable (Score:2)
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Try Cellemetry (Score:1)
Re:WinDAQ springs to mind... (Score:1)
Yeah, right. Unless the girls stand very still, that is...
I can think of plenty of uses for this: temperature sensors scattered around a large space (probably wouldn't even need the modest bandwidth he's asking for here), or flowrate monitoring (or other phenomena) around a river, for example.
Re:Ming Microsystems RF (Score:1)
Bluetooth (Score:1)
Radio telemetry for OEM and end user (Score:1)
http://www.woodanddouglas.co.uk/telemetr/t
Re:serial cable (Score:1)
For even greater distance you could wire up an RS232 to RS422 converter (very simple - did it for a lab in electronics class in under 5min.) Using a differential pair (ie: RS422) will greatly increase the distance you can go. See the link below:
http://www.rs485.com/rs485spec.html
This link does a great job at explaining the differences between the two. Here is a quote:
>>>RS422 (differential) was designed for greater distances and higher Baud rates than RS232. In its simplest form, a pair of converters from RS232 to RS422 (and back again) can be used to form an "RS232 extension cord." Data rates of up to 100K bits / second and distances up to 4000 Ft. can be accommodated with RS422.
Willy
Re:Small Bandwidth? Yer arse... (Score:1)
If you do the math, 12 bits x 100 = 1200bps = 1200 baud. Same bandwidth as your "24 turbine power station". Obviously since he's talking samples per second, latency is a factor where your 24 turbine power station, it wasn't that big a deal.
Now isn't this nice? (Score:1)
My advice is to find the nearest ham club (there is one in your town, I'd wager) and ask them for help. Chances are, if this is not a commercial venture, they might even consider working jointly on this kind of a project. For that matter, if it is commercial and you guys are willing to pay, I know that someone in their club would be willing to do the work. At any rate, they ought to be able to point you in the right direction, seeing as this kind of stuff is what we do for fun.
--KD4TFF
Jefferson Amateur Radio Club
Metairie, Louisiana
Remote Telemetry With Your PC? (Score:1)
Cisco Aironet (Score:1)
Re:Cheap and dirty (Score:2)
You only need one transmitting, and the other receiving. Set up a tone generator on the trans part, supplying high/low/mark tones (three tones, to indicate start, data, stop bits). The receiver's speaker output could go into the computer's sound card. Record and analyse the waveform data to get your data stream.
Now you may be wondering "How the heck do you do multiple channels with this idea?"
The answer to that? Round-robin.
Say you have three sensors, each with a walkie-talkie attached (a fourth walkie-talkie is at the "base station" PC). Two walkie-talkies are in "listen" mode, one is transmitting. The "base station" walkie-talkie listens all the time, and records all the sound (via the sound card in the PC). When one sensor walkie-talkie finishes, the mark tone for the next sensor walkie-talkie in the round-robin is sounded, causing that walkie-talkie to switch into transmit mode, and the first to receive. These mark tones are unique frequencies for each walkie-talkie in the round-robin (so, you would need a tone generator and decoder for each walkie-talkie sensor system - use a 555 for the tone generator, and a 567 for the decoder).
A kludge? Yep.
One other possibility is to just have them all transmitting at once - the signals will overlap - and then doing some hard-core waveform analysis on everything (maybe you could put a carrier tone on each). Or, you might be able to retune a bunch of walkie-talkie pairs, then select each pair at the base station PC via the parallel port (and an analog switch IC), feeding each walkie-talkie output in fashion to the PC sound card input...
You would probably get the same kind of line-of-sight distance as the AC's solution, more with the family radios. Shouldn't cost more than $40 per sensor on the low end (plus some blood, sweat, and tears to wire everything up and code the software interface).
I support the EFF [eff.org] - do you?
Re:Simple laser line of site - here's a start (Score:1)
Link is here [amazing1.com]
---
Suggestion... (Score:1)
Then pick up a wireless ethernet card for the laptop.
And, of course, if the laptops are cheap enough, you could make a beowulf cluster of these..
If you want to spend more money and get something smaller, see about one of the HP Jornada handheld PCs. You'd have to get an external digitizer hooked to the serial port and write WinCE software to take advantage of it, but they are pretty small and they have a PCMCIA slot for wireless ethernet. Alternitively, you could rip it open and hotwire your sensor to the microphone jack.
Product plug :-) (Score:2)
Look at the Fieldpoint section on NI's site [ni.com]
Yeap, you guessed it, I work for National Instruments
Seriously though, there are some very interesting options with the NI gear.
Re:Simple laser line of site (Score:1)
Then you just have to make the receiver, which could be any RadioShack phototransistor...
Ming Microsystems RF (Score:2)
well don't RF beat all. (Score:1)
1000feet is easy.
but you could probably build your own.
use Radiometrix RF modules. http://www.radiometrix.co.uk/
their about AU$100 @.. but very very very easy to use.
anyway, Infrared is boring and so's cabling.
Matt
Re:Simple laser line of site (Score:3)
tws-434 transmitter perfect solution (Score:1)
Migrant workers (Score:1)
Signal degredation and packet loss might be an issue during siesta.
--cr@ckwhore
Simple Solution (Score:1)
Then use a linux box. I have serial code you can have (LGPL) if you want.
Re:Freewave (Score:1)
Re:serial cable (Score:1)
--n1zpp
Fluke wireless loggers (Score:2)
thad
Hydra (Score:1)
Data Aquisition Modules to a wireless serial link (Score:1)
You didn't give much information so here's my 2 cents worth...
To digitize the signal you are using you can use several means. Probably a cheap and versatile means is to use Adam Data Aquisition Modules (a facsimile is available from www.computerboards.com [computerboards.com]. They are small and run off of 24 VDC. They can do analog/digital I/O, counting, temerature measurement, etc. They use a RS485 (2 or 4 wire) serial link which could be converted to wireless (using ???). Then simply feed the data into a PC serial port (may need a RS232 to RS485 converter).
There are also standalone data aquisition modules that can do the above too. Then you can periodically hook up a laptop to it and download the data.
That's about all I can offer based on the little infromation you provided and the 2 cents I had to work with :)
Re:Freewave (Score:1)
Re:Is is line of sight? (Score:1)
I find this hard to beleive, given that Imax claims the system is *sequential* left/right (alternating left/right frames).
Are you sure?
The obligatory "Use Linux" reply (Score:1)
All of the parts neccessary are easily obtainable "off the shelf" and frequently "on the cheap" via Ebay and other surplus sales. For instance, take an ISA 4-5 slot backplane. Add in a 486 SBC computer card (preferably with a Disk-on-Chip built in), 12 port ADC ISA card, ISA to PCMCIA card, and a PCMCIA 802.11 wireless network card. Roll your own cut-down Linux distribution with network/serial drivers and a script to automatically poll the ADC and send results via the network to another machine. Throw in a wall-wort to power it and your done! (Well almost.)
gatewayelex.com (Score:2)
they have stores in denver, san diego, st. louis.
if you need details via phone or email i'd try to hit up the san diego store first, i think they have an old navy fart working there who knows the most about their radio kits.
a one-way link will probably set you back like $100 just for parts, but i'm guessing.
web-controlled robot (Score:1)
All you really need are... (Score:1)
a semi perfect solution (Score:2)