2012 Award Winners
Award-winning project: Wireless sensor connectivity for educational measurement technology
Project partners: PHYWE Systeme GmbH & Co. KG | Steinbeis Transfer Center Embedded Design and Networking/Heitersheim
In the field of measurement technology, the transmission and storage of physical quantities are becoming increasingly important alongside local acquisition and pre-processing. To this end, a wide variety of wireless and wired transmission protocols have been developed in recent years to meet the respective requirements of specific applications. Key objectives here include technical parameters such as data rate, stability, security, real-time capability, scalability, energy efficiency, autonomy and adaptability of network management, as well as commercial parameters such as cost, long-term strategic availability and standardisation. In particular, various wireless transmission protocols have become established in recent years, enabling flexible and largely installation-free operation. These are already in use today in many areas of consumer electronics, as well as in automation technology. In this context, operation via powerful and user-friendly devices such as smartphones and tablet PCs is also becoming increasingly important.
Against this backdrop, PHYWE Systeme GmbH & Co. KG has decided to utilise this technology in the field of educational measurement technology as well, and to establish it as an integral part of its solutions for science and engineering education in schools and universities. For 100 years now, PHYWE has been providing equipment, experiments and integrated solutions for school and university education in the natural sciences and applied sciences (materials science, medicine, etc.), as well as for applications preparatory to and closely related to research, and has established itself as a global market leader in this field. This position has been consolidated with the introduction of the Cobra4 product family, and the company has succeeded in linking this modern and contemporary method of data acquisition with curricular content worldwide, thereby increasing interest in science-related learning content – particularly when combined with real-world experiments – amongst both teachers and learners.
The Steinbeis Transfer Centre for Embedded Design and Networking (stzedn), with its professional development team, has already implemented numerous developments relating to so-called embedded connectivity in the first ten years since its foundation by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Axel Sikora. As part of several sub-projects, stzedn has successfully designed and implemented key elements of the system development for the new Cobra4 product family for PHYWE. In addition to a completely new microcontroller and radio transceiver platform based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, a flexible, stable and user-friendly overall system has also been developed, combining low costs and high energy efficiency with very high performance.
Work is currently underway on the second product generation.