Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have been used recently in different applications such as environmental monitoring and target tracking. Few papers have investigated the viability of this technology on board ships. We study in this paper the possibility of replacing the wired shipboard monitoring system by a WSN. This environment has a specific metallic structure which makes the wireless communication more difficult than in other classical indoor and outdoor environments. Two types of experiments have been carried out on board a ferry-type boat during sailings and stopovers. The first experiment consists of point-to-point measurements using ZigBee-based equipments and the second one consists of deploying and testing a WSN on board the ferry. These tests have been conducted during realistic conditions on board the ferry, which give a high level of reliability to results with respect to the earlier experiments on board ships moored to the harbor. In spite of the harsh metallic structure and the dynamic environments on board the ferry, the obtained results have shown that the wireless solution may be a cost-effective alternative of the huge amount of cables used actually to connect sensors to central control units.

No abstract

This paper presents the results obtained from 60 GHz propagation measurement campaigns in indoor environments. These measurements are performed in the frequency domain and are based on the use of a vector network analyzer (VNA). The analysis of the results makes it possible to characterize the propagation channel. In first measurement campaign, we show the influence of different types of antennas on the path loss characteristics in a hallway, while in the second campaign results highlight the effect of the type of antenna of the access point (AP) and its position on the angular impulse response of the channel inside a meeting room. All of these results are intended to lead to rules for the deployment of wireless high-speed local and personal area networks (WLANs/WPANs).

No abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) have recently gained a great attention in several applications such as environmental monitoring and target tracking. Applying this technology to shipboard monitoring systems may be a costeffective solution to reduce the cost of wires installation and maintenance. However, wireless communications on board ships may be severely obstructed by the metallic structure of bulkheads. In this paper, we analyze the efficiency of a shipboard WSN by measurement and simulation. A measurement campaign is conducted to study the radio wave propagation and to verify the feasibility of a WSN on board a ship. Based on the measurement results, a hierarchical groupbased topology for a large-scale shipboard WSN is proposed. A realistic simulation model of the ship, taking into account the environment particularities, is then performed using OPNET network simulator. Performance of the WSN architecture is evaluated using the ZigBee model. Measurement results show the feasibility of WSN technology on board ships, while simulation results show significant performance of proposed architecture in terms of end-to-end delay and packet delivery ratio.