Wireless Sensing for Survivable Machinery Control

While reliability and security remain top concerns in the use of wireless networks in shipboard machinery spaces, the benefits are too alluring to ignore. Among them: reduced manning; wiring, installation, and maintenance cost savings; substantial weight and space savings thru the elimination of wiring; design and expansion flexibility; and the promise of improved survivability thru the use of ad-hoc mesh networks. Wireless communication within shipboard compartments has gathered considerable attention in recent years and substantial progress has been made to address thorny interference, signal shielding, multi-path fading, and dispersion problems. The typical approach involves a hybrid network with wireless access points linked to the ship's wired network backbone (e.g., FODMS on DDG-51 class). Little (if any) attention has been given to a ship-wide wireless-only network infrastructure that effectively eliminates bulkhead penetrations. This effort aims to assess the effectiveness of multiple communication modalities thru metal structures. A proof-of-concept prototype repeater will be developed to retransmit RF signals from one compartment to another.