wireless help

[msucog]

i thought i'd throw a question out to you folks.

does anyone know of a good way to obtain data at a geophone then transmit that data (say 200 foot distance) to a remote computer/unit where it can then be passed in to the seismograph? the signal passing in to the seismograph is essentially the voltage induced across the geophone by small ground movement. the geophone has only a positive and negative wire. any thoughts based on my very brief description?

here is a link to a similar wireless unit but i'm trying to do something a little different for my application (principles are exactly the same). i may just be stuck paying someone to develop what i'm looking for.

http://www.wirelessseismic.com/index.html

 

[Comcokid]

Looking at the wireless system in the link, and some of their data (runs from 2 d-cells for several days, 100 motes to single base, 2.4 GHz band) I would say they are using a 802.15.4 type transceiver.

802.15.4 transceiver pre-made modules for use as a design-in component for use are available from a number of companies. Add a 24 bit A/D, and you could have a similar system. This transceiver/communication specification is intended for low data-rate communications. Typical distance for the transceiver chips used by these modules, if unamplified and equipped with a simple omni-type antenna is 200 meters.

The 802.15.4 spec describes the physical layer of these transceivers. The primary network/software/system used with these transceivers is Zigbee. However, Zigbee is somewhat a trying-to-please-everyone-in-the-committee-and-everybody-with-a-ivory-tower-idea type standard, and as such is many times not flexible enough, or carries too much overhead for a fixed or specific application. It's been said that Zigbee is a standard that everybody is fully embracing in order to do their own non-Zigbee product.

In addition to the design-in modules, there are some modules that are a little more plug-in, configure with higher-level software, and go type modules, but these will still require some software and work to get going fully. Because of the availability of a standard to which many transceiver chip companies are designing (TI/Chipcon, Freescale, Atmel, Renesas, Jennic, etc) many industries are developing their own industry standards using these transceivers to do their own thing. You could find that there are some industrial sensor devices already designed for A/D input for something like your seismic/geophone application that would require very little to get a system going.

 

[msucog]

i think that may have gotten me on to something that might work. thanks.