Applying ubiquitous wireless technologies for shipboard monitoring systems

This paper studies the feasibility of ubiquitous wireless technologies for shipboard monitoring systems. A measurement campaign has been conducted aboard a ferry boat to study the propagation challenges of wireless communication in this harsh environment. Path loss models have been obtained from the measurements results. We have used these results to determine engineering rules concerning the nodes placement and the number of nodes needed to cover the different decks of the ship. Finally, a wireless sensor network based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard has been tested successfully on board. Sensor nodes have been placed on the four decks and the sink node related to a laptop has been placed in the control room of the ferry. The placement of nodes was based on the results of the propagation study.