Wireless links for global positioning system receivers

Given an object, its positioning in the space is a main concern in structural monitoring and a required feedback in structural health monitoring, structural control and robotics. In addition, to make the sensor unit wireless is a crucial issue for advanced applications. This paper deals with the exploitation of wireless transmission technology to long-term monitoring GPS (Global Positioning System) receivers - like the Leica GMX 902 and the Leica GRX 1200-pro. These GPS receivers consist of five parts: antenna, receiver, user client computer, interface and power supply. The antenna is mounted on the object to be monitored and is connected with the receiver by a coaxial-cable through which the radio frequency signals are transmitted. The receiver unit acquires, tracks and demodulates the satellite signals and provides, through an interface which in this paper is made wireless, the resulting GPS raw data to the user client computer for being further processed by a suitable positioning algorithm. The power supply reaches the computer by a wired link, while the other modules rely on batteries re-charged by power harvesting devices. Two wireless transmission systems, the 24XStream and the CC1110, are applied to replace the cable transmission between the receiver and the user client computer which up to now was the only market offer. To verify the performance and the reliability of this wireless transmission system, some experiments are conducted. The results show a successful cable replacement.