Reliability of wireless sensors using low cost WiFi chipsets for structural monitoring

Abstract

This paper focused on the gathering of comparative temperature data from the ventilation systems installed in two buildings constructed to differing building standards. The Logging of temperature at 6 locations in the ventilation system ducting, plus current for the AC load was undertaken. An interval of 15 minutes for temperature was requested, however more frequent current measurements were required as short term variation had to be accounted for. At one of the sites the system proved to be reasonably reliable, with typical uptime of 7-14 days, the other site suffered from frequent drop-outs/crashes often within 24 hours of being manually reset.