Vibration monitoring system of ships using wireless sensor networks

For the managers to improve their knowledge regarding the vibration condition of the ship they manage, a dense array of wireless sensors installed on the ship could provide ample amounts of data for monitoring vibration condition. The wireless sensor networks offer a distributed computing paradigm that allows sensor to self interrogate acceleration data. In particular, the proposed wireless sensor is constructed using a compact two layer printed circuit board. Furthermore, the wireless sensor utilizes an implementation of the IEEE 802.15.4 standard for wireless networks allowing it to participate in scalable, star network that is adaptable to network changes without requiring reprogramming. Farthermore, a data collection and analysis software with a database is built to realized more data-processing.

I. Introduction

Nowadays, with the development of ship building technology, some new-built ships are made in aluminum for decreasing the weight so that ships could get high-performance. However, high-performance aluminum ships also provide a number of operational challenges to the ship engineering community. One of the problems is the influence of vibration. As we all know, with the engine working in vary speed, the engine would cause vibration start from engine room and spread across the hull. When the vibration is greater than the design of vibration-tolerance, it would damage the hull structure health, especially for the ships build in aluminum. A vibration monitoring system is needed.