Conceptual Design of Wireless DAQ System for Vehicle Blast Testing

In modern warfare, anti-vehicular mine attack is a critical parameter in the design of an armored personnel vehicle. In order to acquire vital engineering data such as shock, load and pressure of these vehicles under extreme condition, a suitable data acquisition system (DAQ) is required. Conventional wired transmission provides a secure and faster connectivity but is limited in its operation distance and creates unwanted noise. Wireless transmission offers greater flexibility and robustness whereby data can be transmitted and received at equivalent high speed rate as offered in conventional wired transmission. In this paper, a conceptual design of wireless DAQ system is proposed for blast testing in accordance to NATO AEP-55 Procedure. The Wi-Fi with IEEE 802.11n protocol was employed along with a selection of sensors, instrumentation hardware and instrumented anthropometric test dummy (ATD) in order to suit to the test requirements. The challenge here is to design a wireless system which will acquire the data remotely prior to signal conditioning and in real-time. Although real-time DAQ strategies have been adequately explored, challenges of implementing a cost effective higher throughput of data that matched with specific requirements of the sensors within very tight timing window still remain due to the reliability issue related to the wireless approach. The conceptual design can be a useful reference in future development of a cost efficient measurement tools for evaluating the protection level of armored vehicles.