SAJJAD BAGHAEE , IDENTIFICATION AND LOCALIZATION ON A WIRELESS MAGNETIC SENSOR NETWORK , 2012

  This study focused on using magnetic sensors for localization and identification of targets with a wireless sensor network (WSN). A wireless sensor network with MICAz motes was set up utilizing a centralized tree-based system. The MTS310, which is equipped with a 2-axis magnetic

sensor  was used as the sensor board on MICAz motes. The use of magnetic sensors in wireless

sensor networks is a topic that has gained limited attention in comparison to that of other sensors. Research has generally focused on the detection of large ferromagnetic targets (e.g., cars and airplanes).  Moreover, the changes in the magnetic field intensity measured by the sensor have been used to obtain simple information, such as target direction or whether or not the target has passed a certain point.  This work aims at understanding the sensing limitations of magnetic sensors by considering small-scale targets moving within a 30 cm radius. Four heavy iron bars were used as test targets in this study. Target detection, identification and sequential localization were accomplished using the Minimum Euclidean Distance (MED) method. The results show the accuracy of this method for this job. Different forms of sensor sensing region discretization were considered. Target identification was done on the boundaries of sensing regions. Different gateways were selected as entrance point for identification point and the results of them were compared with each other. An online ILS system was implemented and continuous movements of the ferromagnetic objects were monitored. The undesirable factors which affect the measurements were discussed and techniques to reduce or eliminate faulty measurements are presented. A magnetic sensor orientation detector and set/reset strap have been designed and fabricated. Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (OMP) algorithm was proposed for multiple sensors multiple target case in ILS systems as a future work. This study can then be used to design energy-efficient, intelligent magnetic sensor networks.