Industrial Internet of Things for Health Monitoring of a Gas Turbine Engine: Wireless Sensor Networks for Aerospace Propulsion

This paper considers the particular challenges and solutions for deployment of flexible diagnostic sensing into an aerospace environment. We design an ultra-low power sensor with the energy harvesting technology necessary for long-term deployment of a wireless sensor in an in-service gas turbine. The applicability of thermal harvesters coupled with suitable conversion electronics and super capacitor technology is demonstrated to scavenge and store energy from the abundant source of waste heat expelled by an aeroengine. This is used to power an ultra-low power microprocessor, multimodal sensors and an RF transceiver that is used to transmit data over a wireless network of sensor nodes. Thermal management techniques are employed to maximize power generation whilst ensuring that the internal temperature of the sensor remains within the operation limits of the electronics. The paper reports successful operation in the initial target environment around a civil aerospace fan-case. The challenge of transmitting information within the highly resonant GTE environment in a secure, energy efficient manner is also met with our solution tested on a running large civil aero engine to provide feedback about operational performance.