In this project, an integrated hardware and software system for a wireless sensor network (WSN)  is designed and developed for gas leakage detection and monitoring. The proposed WSN can provide better protection to fire fighters and provide safety and early-warning gas detection for individuals, Factories and institutions. The most important characteristics of the proposed WSN system are the low-cost, small size, low energy consumption of the manufactured sensor devices, and the possibility of on-the-fly deployment. The proposed system can operate in single-hop and multi-hop modes depending on the surrounding RF environment and network topology.

Outcomes:

Two design-variants of the WSN system are implemented. The first variant is a per-deployed WSN for LPG gas detection and monitoring in residential locations and factories that collects, analyzes and transmits the sensed information over the wireless channel to the monitoring center to take the appropriate action. The second variant is on-the-fly deployed WSN for fire-fighting applications that can provide better protection to fire fighters by wirelessly sending information about the current status (such as gas density) inside the burning/gas leaked closed area. This allows the fire fighters to take the appropriate action before entering the dangerous area. Specifically, an inexpensive small-size gas- monitoring sensor node is designed, manufactured, and calibrated to achieve the requirements for efficient in-door gas-leakage monitoring and fire-fighting applications. Each sensor node consists of a gas-sensing device, a PIC micro-controller for data and signal processing, and a ZigBee transceiver for wireless transmission. To achieve a reliable communications and data delivery, we also develop efficient communication protocols that connect between the various elements and nodes in the system. The developed protocols are implemented and tested within the micro-controller to provide a flexible software platform that enables efficient and reliable operation for the WSN. The proposed WSN prototype were deployed and experimentally tested. The data acquired from the various experiments was used to examine the correct functionality, robustness, and communication reliability of the proposed WSN variants. Robust and reliable performance was demonstrated. The results also indicate that the proposed WSNs can detect gas leakage and provide accurate gas-concentration measurements within a timely manner.