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IEEE International Conference on Radioelektronika (RADIOELEKTRONIKA), April, 2014

Wind speed measurement and alert system for tunnel


fire safety
Nedjeljko Leki, Radovan Stojanovi, Almir Gadzovi and Zoran Mijanovic
Faculty of Electrical Engineering
University of Montenegro
Podgorica, Montenegro
Abstract This paper describes a system for wind speed
measurement and alert. It is used at the portals of tunnel Sozina,
4189m length, en route Podgorica-Bar with primary function is
to increase traffic safety in the tunnel. The system provides
information for other tunnel systems, such as fire protection,
traffic signaling, etc. It consists of anemometers, microcontroller
based data acquisition modules and a central PC. The system can
collect other types of data and be easily adapted for other
purposes.
Keywords anemometer; central computer; microcontroller
data acquisition module; tunnel portals; wind speed.

I.

INTRODUCTION

WITH the development of transport infrastructure,


construction of very long tunnels and an increasing flow of
vehicles, it is often seen that tunnel accidents can take away a
large number of peoples lives and make extremely large
material damage (Mont Blanc tunnel 1999. [1], Gotthatd tunnel
2001. [2], Caldecott tunnel 1982. [3], Summit tunnel 1984. [4]
in all which there were fires). This has led to a significant
upgrade of safety standards, especially when it comes to fire
protection. The main issue in the case of fire is the wind, or the
inflow of fresh air that rekindles the fire and leads to a
complete inability of rescue teams. This is the reason why it is
very important to monitor the wind speed across both access
sides of long tunnels [5].

The system is designed to be universal. In this sense, the


peripheral devices can be connected to other types of sensors
(digital or analogue) such as thermometers, carbon monoxide
sensors (CO sensors), luminosity sensors, sound sensors, etc.

II.

SYSTEM DESCRIPTION

The system consists of:


- Anemometer (EVT-11K),
- Data acquisition module (PLC-EC2010),
- PC application and
- Server with database.
Fig. 1 shows the block diagram of the implemented system.

This paper presents a description of the system for


collecting data on wind speed at both tunnel portals. The
greatest attention is given to the reliability of the system in all
segments, especially in the field of communication. The
system consists of peripheral devices for data acquisition and a
central computer with a database.
Following the principle the simpler the more reliable:
- The peripheral hardware is realized as a microcontroller
device without a hard drive, cooler or other less reliable
elements;
- Data transfer from the peripherals to the central
computer is realized via UDP protocol [6];
- For communication paths, the existing Ethernet
infrastructure in the tunnel is used. This infrastructure is
the backbone of all vital systems in the tunnel with high
priority maintenance.

978-1-4799-3715-8/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE

Fig. 1. The block diagram of the implemented wind speed measurement and
alert system.

IEEE International Conference on Radioelektronika (RADIOELEKTRONIKA), April, 2014

As it can be seen from Fig. 3, the data acquisition module


can drive 8 outputs, too. These are the O0 to the O7 outputs of
the non-inverting buffer 74HC541. These outputs are not
employed in this use of the acquisition module, but could be in
some other, for control purposes.

+5V

L1

27

100nF

C2

C8
100n

100u

C4 15p

C5 15p

nRST
R17
SCK

R18

MISO
R22
MOSI

R19

The sinusoidal signal from the anemometer output is


connected to the ADC0 input of the ATMega16
microcontroller, via two resistor voltage divider. The
microcontroller performs the AD conversion every 500s and
counts positive half-period of the input signal. In order to
eliminate noise influence and obtain high accuracy of the
measurements, the software performs some filtering. In this
sense, every 500s, three AD conversions are performed. The
maximum and the minimum value are discarded, and the
middle value is further processed [8].
The PLC-EC2010 calculates number of positive half-period
of the input signal, during time interval of one second, and

+5V

+ C3
33u

PC7/TOSC2
PC6/TOSC1
PC5/TDI
PC4/TDO
PC3/TMS
PC2/TCK
PC1/SDA
PC0/SCL

AREF
GND

5,17, 38
6, 18, 39
8

VCC
GND
XTL1

PA7/AD7
PA6/AD6
PA5/AD5
PA4/AD4
PA3/AD3
PA2/AD2
PA1/AD1
PA0/AD0

XTL2

C6 1n

1K

1K

RST

3
2
1
44
43
42
41
40

100
1K

U6
OE1
OE2
A0 Y 0
A1 Y 1
A2 Y 2
A3 Y 3
A4 Y 4
A5 Y 5
A6 Y 6
A7 Y 7

PB7/SCK
PB6/MISO
PB5/MOSI
PB4/SS
PB3/AIN1
PB2/AIN0
PB1/T1
PB0/T0

16

PD7/RD
PD6/WR
PD5/OC1A
PD4
PD3/INT1
PD2/INT0
PD1/TXD
PD0/RXD

30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
16
15
14
13
12
11
10
9

18
17
16
15
14
13
12
11

15
R21
1K

D3
RED

TXD
RXD

19
20
22
21
34
35
36
37

O0
O1
O2
O3
O4
O5
O6
O7

RXD

47K

I7
I6
I5
I4
I3
I2
I1
I0
12K
U4

U5BCDEF

U5A
74HC04

D2
GREEN

ATMEGA16-TQFP

74HC541

TXD

R20
1K

26
25
24
23
22
21
20
19

8x6E8

13

Anemometers are connected into the system via PLCEC2010 data acquisition modules. The basic part of PLCEC2010 is ATMega16 microcontroller [7]. The electrical
scheme of the data acquisition module is shown in Fig. 3. Its
function is to receive the sinusoidal signal from the
anemometer, extract the wind speed information and send it to
the central computer, via LAN network. One data acquisition
module can host up to 8 analogue or digital sensors (inputs I0
to I7). Those sensors can be thermometers, carbon monoxide
sensors (CO sensors), luminosity sensors, sound sensors, etc.

Fig. 2. The measured transfer characteristic of the EVT-11K anemometer.

23
24
25
26
30
31
32
33

OUT
GND

AVCC

28

+5V
1
8x33K 19
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

IN

U1

29

7M3728

X1
GND

U2 MC7805C

GND

100u
C7
+5V

D1
1N4001
C1
100u

+12V

12

+12V

RX-C

74HC04
R25
33K

VCC

GND

GND

R24 33K
TX-C

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

Ethernet connector

The EVT-11K anemometer generates a sinusoidal signal


whose frequency is proportional to the wind speed. The output
impedance of the anemometer is 520. At low wind speeds,
the signal amplitude is approximately 1V, while at speeds
above 70km/h the amplitude exceeds 2V. Fig. 3 shows the
measured transfer characteristic of the anemometer. The yellow
line represents the default factory characteristic, the blue line
represents our control measurements, while the red line
represents the best linear interpolation of the measured
characteristic.

sends it to the central computer. That information is then used


by the PC application to calculate the wind speed.

As shown in block diagram, anemometer and data


acquisition module are set at both tunnel portals. The
anemometer provides signal proportional to the current wind
speed. The data acquisition module receives the signal,
processes it and sends data to the PC application, via LAN
network. The PC application receives data and records it into
the database. Furthermore, the PC application provides a
graphical and numerical representation of the wind speed at the
tunnel portals. In the case that wind exceeds the set threshold,
PC application alerts the responsible personnel.

RS232 to Ethernet conv erter

Fig. 3. The electrical scheme of the PLC-EC2010 data acquisition module.

Fig. 4 shows realized PLC-EC2010 data acquisition


module, used in the wind speed measurement system at portals
of tunnel Sozina.
The communication between concentrator and fast server is
based on UDP over a TCP/IP protocol because of two reasons
[9]:
-

Data packages are small transmitted via one UDP


datagram. So there is no need for data splitting or
merging;

IEEE International Conference on Radioelektronika (RADIOELEKTRONIKA), April, 2014

In case of corrupted or lost data packet the


retransmission is not necessary. On the other hand,
UDP protocol is considerably simpler than TCP/IP
protocol, and system will very fast reconfigure itself
in case of any communication error.

In order to connect elements into the system it is necessary


to set the IP address of the central computer into the PLCEC2010 module. Thats the only setting in the system.
Although IP addresses of PLC-EC2010 modules are not
important to the operation of the system, we need to know
them if we want to remotely access and potentially change the
earlier assigned IP address of the central computer. Therefore,
on power start or address change, every PLC-EC2010 module
sends an e-mail message with a description of all its internal
settings.

Fig. 7. The numeric display shows current wind speed at tunnel portals.

The PC application can be used to show various useful


reports, such as:
Fig. 4. PLC-EC2010 data acquisition module in the wind speed measurement
system at portals of tunnel Sozina

The PC application receives data from PLC-EC2010 data


acquisition modules, processes it and records it into the
database. The user can choose the graphical representation in a
form of charts, Fig 6, or the numeric display, Fig. 7

Fig. 6. The graphical representation of the maximum wind speed at southern


(red lines) and northern (blue lines) tunnel portal, during one day.

Reports about maximum, average and minimum wind


speed for certain periods of the day, week or month;
Alert reports;
different weekly, monthly and annual summary
reports;
etc.
III.

RESULTS

As an illustration of the collected data, the following


diagrams provide a graphical representation of the measured
wind speed during one month (February 2014.).
Diagrams on Fig. 8 and 9 show maximum and average
wind speed for each day in February 2014, at northern and
southern tunnel portal, respectively.

Fig. 8. Maximum (red columns) and average (blue columns) wind speed for
each day in February 2014, at the northern tunnel portal.

IEEE International Conference on Radioelektronika (RADIOELEKTRONIKA), April, 2014

Fig. 9. Maximum (red columns) and average (blue columns) wind speed for
each day in February 2014, at the southern tunnel portal.

Diagram on Fig. 10 shows maximum wind speed for each


day in February 2014, at northern and southern tunnel portal.
Red columns represent maximum wind speed at southern
portal, while blue columns represent maximum wind speed at
southern portal.

Fig. 11. Average wind speed at southern (red columns) and northern (blue
columns) tunnel portal, for each day in February 2014.
.

IV.

CONCLUSION

The system, in its three years practice, has proven reliable


and easy to use. Although primary built for the tunnel needs, it
is designed for a more wide usage. Thanks to mobile
communications and the Internet, this system could collect data
from far remote locations. In this sense, the system could be
used in meteorology and telemetry as well.
V.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We are thankful to project GEPSUS, NATO Science for


Peace and Security Programme, for partly supporting this
research.
REFERENCES
[1]

[2]
[3]
Fig. 10. Maximum wind speed at southern (red columns) and northern (blue
columns) tunnel portal, for each day in February 2014.

Diagram on Fig. 11 shows average wind speed for each


day in February 2014, at northern and southern tunnel portal.
Red columns represent average wind speed at southern portal,
while blue columns represent average wind speed at southern
portal.

[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]

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