Development of RFID Based Smart Sensor Prototype for Wireless Industrial Monitoring and Control

The Purpose of this paper is to present one of the various wireless technologies currently available for industrial monitoring and control. Applications of wireless data transmission are universal. In industrial automation, the benefits of adopting wireless technologies in eliminating the needs for cables in hard to reach areas within the plant, increasing data availability and quality and monitoring and controlling remote assets, that otherwise were inaccessible. Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is commonly used for object or animal identification and tracking. This article explores the feasibility of its use in a rapid solution to wireless real time monitoring of industry. A prototype system for wireless industrial monitoring and control was developed using a commercially available 12.5 GHZ RFID passive tags. Various parameters are sensed by respective sensors (Slaves), which are then monitored by low power, high performance, 8bit AVR microcontroller. Monitored signals are then sent to the RFID tag or transponder unit, hence the smart feature of the sensor. A receiving unit (Interrogator) emits an electromagnetic field which when detected by passive RFID tag causes it to transfer sensor information (data stored in memory) to the interrogator. Interrogator detects these parameters and sends them to the data collection PC (Master Unit). The architecture of the developed wireless sensor prototype allows for additional RFID tags (Slave Units) to be integrated into it without changes to the sensor designs. Design also provides means to update operating and monitoring parameters as well as sensors/RF link specific firmware modules ‘over the air’.