arXiv subjects

Chesney Buyle

Publications and source records attributed to Chesney Buyle.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Low-Power Impact Detection and Localization on Forklifts Using Wireless IMU Sensors

Forklifts are essential for transporting goods in industrial environments. These machines face wear and tear during field operations, along with rough terrain, tight spaces and complex handling scenarios. This increases the likelihood of unintended impacts, such as collisions with goods, infrastructure, or other machinery. In addition, deliberate misuse has been stated, compromising safety and equipment integrity. This paper presents a low-cost and low-power impact detection system based on multiple wireless sensor nodes measuring 3D accelerations. These were deployed in a measurement campaign covering realworld operational scenarios. An algorithm was developed, based on this collected data, to differentiate high-impact events from normal usage and to localize detected collisions on the forklift. The solution successfully detects and localizes impacts, while maintaining low power consumption, enabling reliable forklift monitoring with multi-year sensor autonomy.

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arXiv2023

An Acoustic Simulation Framework to Support Indoor Positioning and Data Driven Signal Processing Assessments

We present an indoor acoustic simulation framework that supports both ultrasonic and audible signaling. The framework opens the opportunity for fast indoor acoustic data generation and positioning development. The improved Pyroomacoustics-based physical model includes both an image-source model (ISM) and ray tracing method to simulate acoustic signaling in geometric spaces that extend typical shoe-box rooms. Moreover, it offers the convenience to facilitate multiple speakers and microphones with different directivity patterns. In addition to temperature and air absorption, the room reverberation is taken into account characterized by the RT60 value or the combination of building materials. Additional noise sources can be added by means of post processing and/or extra speakers. Indoor positioning methods assessed in simulation are compared with real measurements in a testbed, called 'Techtile'. This analysis confirms that the simulation results are close to the measurements and form a realistic representation of the reality. The simulation framework is constructed in a modular way, and parts can be replaced or modified to support different application domains. The code is made available open source.

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arXiv2021

A Multi-band Solution for Interacting with Energy-Neutral Devices

RF Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) emerges as a technology for charging autonomous devices, enabling simultaneous power and information transfer. However, with increasing distance, single-input, single-channel rectenna systems are not able to meet the power requirements of large scale IoT applications. In this paper, we tackle this problem on two levels. First, we minimize the energy consumption at the energy-constrained device on three levels. Second, we evolve to a dual-band solution increasing RF WPT. One frequency band is used to provide a base charge to many nodes in a shared transmission. Beam steering, on the other hand, allows for more power hungry operations while introducing as minimal interference as possible. We showcase this method for a hybrid RF-acoustic positioning system. Practical measurements conducted in a multi-antenna indoor testbed (Techtile) show the additional power gain and positioning rate.

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arXiv2020

Energy Neutral Devices: Can Hybrid RF Acoustic Signals Point Them Out?

We present a hybrid signaling approach to position energy-neutral devices. Our method combines the best of two worlds: instant RF signals for both communication and energy transfer, and slower propagating acoustic waves for accurate distance measurements. We introduce advanced energy loading of an 'E-buffer' through beamformed RF signals. The scientific contribution of our approach is twofold, advancing both the positioning performance and the energy harvesting efficiency. On the one hand, we overcome current distance limitations in RF backscattering-based indoor localization. On the other hand, it enhances the energy harvesting by using the calculated position and beamforming a higher amount of directed RF energy into the mobile node. We provide a functional architecture for both sides of the system and present a proof-of-concept. Practical measurements in representative use cases show an update rate of 10 positions per hour within the regulatory constraints in the 868MHz band for distances up to 4.5 m. An energy and power model are drawn up to provide insights into the performance trade-offs.

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arXiv2019

LoRa Physical Layer Evaluation for Point-to-Point Links and Coverage Measurements in Diverse Environments

This paper focuses on Point-to-Point LoRa connections. We report on coverage measurements performed in three distinct environments, i.e., coastal, forest and urban. Our field experiments demonstrate coverage up to 1 km with antennas at only 1.5 m height in an urban scenario. In free Line-of-Sight (LoS) this coverage is extended to 4 km. Based on these results, we are developing a path loss model in future work. The developed hardware and software including measurements are open-source.

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