Sensor Area Networks (SANs)

[davidbrady]

(05-04-2013 18:36)DOSZORROS Wrote:  David:

I am far from an electrical genius (spell dumb) but I am curious where you are headed with this and what your ultimate goal is? What systems do you want to monitor or control?

Thanks in advance

Hi George,

Hopefully these devices won't require genius! I really don't want to reinvent the wheel, and being basically lazy, I'm scouring around looking for off the shelf components that will be close to turn-key (I just turn the key and it works). I really don't want to spend a lot of time writing code, been there done that. But I'd love to have at my fingertips a cheap, compact, general purpose single board computer, preferably running Linux (most likely the Debian distribution) to monitor a host of things. Anything really, from S60 fan speed, to pressure differences, to cameras, to overall machine health. I'd still like to experiment with auxiliary air tanks on my steer axle suspension, but I need to measure accelerations in a controlled way for changes to be meaningful. So I'm thinking a few 3-axis accelerometers and maybe vibration sensors, but then I need to do a fast fourier transform to isolate frequencies. Playing around really. That's all. Who knows if it'll turn into anything for the general population.

The trouble (or fun) right now is that this industry has exploded so it's kinda hard to settle on one family of single board computers (SBC). Today I discovered the PhidgetSCB3, which runs Debian and which is very much geared towards the robotics and sensor world. It's an architecture that's more specific with a host of USB connected sensors. The prices are higher the Arduino, BeagleBone, and Raspberry Pi but what they've done with USB connected sensors is compelling. I very much like the idea of using USB (which is shielded twisted pair) to supply power and extract data from sensors. Need to do more research though...