Wireless Sensing for Survivable Machinery Control

San Diego Research Center (SDRC) teamed with UCLA's Embedded Computing group will develop, validate, and demonstrate the feasibility of a magnetic-induction based wireless bridge for use in effectively communicating data through steel wall bulkheads located onboard naval combatants. In addition, we will develop and demonstrate the feasibility of a network architecture and management structure to enable: 1. The use of "smart" machines that operate effectively by making semi-autonomous decisions using a machine control network. 2. The effective operation of all networked components through battle damage facilitated through the development of redundant, disruption-tolerant distributed mesh architectures with optimized routing functionality located at the "edge" of the network. The SDRC team proposes to address the network architecture by adopting an approach that combines wired links, radio links, and magnetic links into a hybrid network architecture glued by intelligent network protocols, robust security mechanisms, and flexible management plane A magnetic induction-based approach for the bridge has considerable appeal. It is 1) relatively immune to interference, 2) can support data rates in excess of those envisioned for a machine control network, 3) inherently very low power, and 4) can be developed into a network bridge that can be installed quickly and with little cost.