Application research on temperature WSN nodes in switchgear assemblies based on TinyOS and ZigBee

Temperature detection can timely discover the potential faults in switchgear assemblies. Appling a Wireless Sensor Networks(WSN) in on-line monitoring system is an effective measure to realize Condition Based Maintenance(CBM) for intelligent switchgear assemblies. A design solution of a temperature wireless sensor network node with CC2430 chip based on ZigBee is presented. The thermocouple is used as main sensor unit to detect the temperature-rise of key points in switchgear assemblies in real time, and the digital temperature sensor is adopted as subsidiary sensor unit to detect the environment temperature, so that the temperature of the points at high voltage and high current can be measured effectively and accurately. TinyOS, the embedded operating system adopted widely for WSN node, is researched and transplanted into CC2430, therefore the node software can be programmed and updated remotely. On this basis, the temperature wireless sensor prototypes based on ZigBee and/or TinyOS with CC2430 are designed and developed, and tested via the WSN experimental platform which is built by us. The experimental result shows that the temperature wireless sensor node can meet the requirement of the system function, and has the features such as low power dissipation, small volume, stable performance and long lifespan etc., and can be broadly applied in on-line temperature measuring and monitoring of high-voltage and low-voltage switchgear assemblies.