Abstract:
The goal of this project is to develop a self-powered wireless sensor system
to measure the dynamics of helicopter blades. The hardware portion of this project
is comprised of two major components. The rst component involves the investigation
of power har- vesting techniques in order to power the sensor system using an
oscillating piezoelectric element attached to the leading edge of the helicopter
blade. The second component of the project is the design and layout of a circuit
board that will interface a TI MSP430 microcontroller with a wireless transceiver
as well as the desired sensors. As an inter- mediate step, a breakout board will
be designed to interface the sensors to a MSP430 development kit. The nal product
will be a self contained circuit board that contains the selected power harvesting
circuit and the microcontroller hardware. The microcon- troller will execute
software developed separately to transmit sensor readings at the fastest interval
permitted by the power harvester. This unit will be attached to both experimental
and production helicopter blades and improve the ease in acquiring and analyzing
data about the blade dynamics for a variety of purposes.
Full report (pdf)