Re-Design of a Sensor Network and Ultrasound Development System

This dissertation is the result of two years of research and development activities on the Sensor Network and SHM fields. It is based on the vision of the establishment a re-design approach (based on a stack structure) respect to the sensor networks world and on the integration of the desired sensors and structures into them. The scope of this project has been to overcome some of the intrinsic issues related to a standard sensor network and in this sense, they can be easily identified: -The structural and logical complexity in adapting the network to the various conditions that can be faced up during an on field analysis; -The repetition of the basic structures spreaded on the whole system that can reduce the reliability of it; -The limited modularity of the system in terms of technological requirements.In this way, it has been developed a Base component with the scope of providing the conceptual and logistic basis for the new network implementation. It relies specially on a communication method (divided in an internal and an external entity) and a supply voltage protection and conversion stage. After this project step, it has investigated how to develop a board thought as an upper layer of the stackable system. According to this, it has been analyzed a SHM module with the aim of focusing on the integration of a not standard sensor network node in the new concept. So, it has been evaluated how to implement a NDT board and in this way it has been identified a Pulser chip. Consequently to its selection, the requirements related to it has been identified. So, all the needed parts has been developed, namely: -The high voltage converters used to supply the Pulser; -The voltage converters for supplying the Pulser logical section and the Opamps; -The Opamps signal conditioning and monitoring structure; -The communication method towards the other sections of the stack.According to this, an analytical approach has been adopted in order to optimize the concept creation.