Circuit Cellar, the Magazine for Computer Applications.
Reprinted
FEATURE ARTICLE
CONTEST WINNER
Delivering water through a fire hose is harder than it looks. NozzleMon, a ZigBee-based water
pressure sensor, enables pump operators to safely deliver water at appropriate pressures.
I magine you’re a firefighter and a call
has come in for a structure fire blazing
through an unoccupied two-story home.
The chief has already arrived on the
scene and has requested two teams, one
for ventilation and one to form a nozzle
team for a hand line to attack the fire
through the front door. As the driver of
the first arriving engine, you’re also the
pump operator, supporting the first-in
nozzle team. After you park the truck,
you put the pump in gear and watch 250′
of preconnected hose line play out of the
hose bed as the nozzle team, tools and
nozzle in hand, rushes toward the front
door as smoke and flames escape through
the first-floor windows. The ventilation
team then radios in that they have venti-
lated the structure. The nozzle team sig-
nals that it’s ready. You charge the line
and they disappear into the building.
In such a scenario, you’d probably
welcome the fact that you’re the
pump operator. After all, it sounds
like the easiest task, right? Actually,
taking nothing away from all those
other people on the fire scene, the
Photo 1—The three pieces of the nozzle unit include
the SARD board, the MPXH6400A pressure sensor on
the right, and the battery. The external connection port
is attached to the pressure sensor with heat-shrink tub-
ing to make a sturdy airtight connection.
20 Issue 184 November 2005
Water Pressure Sensor
ZigBee-Based NozzleMon Aids Firefighters
pump operator has an extremely diffi-
cult and stressful job. Ensuring that the
water supply is available and delivered
at the correct pressure to operate nozzles
is difficult. Why? A pump operator can
see only the output pressure from the
pump; he can’t see the actual delivered
water pressure at the nozzle. There may
be tools and burning structure between
the firefighters with the nozzle and the
pump panel, so the pump operator might
not be able to see the nozzle being used.
Using various heuristics, experience,
and guesswork, the pump operator
must set the output pressure so that
the proper nozzle pressure is available
at the end of the hose line. Factors
like the length and diameter of a hose,
a hose’s elevation in a structure, and
the kinks and perturbations of a hose
may result in water pressure at the
nozzle being radically different from
what was intended. Incorrect pressure
may result in reduced nozzle function-
ality at best and insufficient water
delivery at worst. Sometimes even the
correct pressure can be a problem. A
fully charged hand line can be difficult
to handle. Controlling a hose line with
up to 200 psi of water in a hot, smoky,
dark environment while you’re wearing
heavy gear can be problematic. It’s easy
to slip and lose control of the hand line,
which, if fully charged and open, tends
to flail about dangerously. And again,
the pump operator may not even realize
that there is a problem at the other end
of the hose. The NozzleMon can help!
The NozzleMon system monitors
both the nozzle pressure and the rela-
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by Mitchell Levinn
tive motion of the nozzle at the end of
a water hose. The system then relays
the information back to the person in
charge of the water supply. In this article
I’ll explain how I built the system and
developed the software to support it.
SYSTEM OVERVIEW
In the NozzleMon system, a
Freescale ZigBee family evaluation
board, the 13192-EVB, serves as the con-
troller in the pump panel unit (PPU) to
receive and display the nozzle’s data. An
MC13192 sensor application reference
design (SARD) board serves as the nozzle
unit (NU) processor that manages the
sensors near the nozzle.
Pressure sensing is performed by an
MPXH6400A integrated silicon pres-
sure sensor, which I used to replace
the MPXM2010GS on the breakaway
board from the 2004 Freescale Wireless
Design Challenge. Position sensing is
achieved with the x- and y-axis
(MMA6261Q) and z-axis (MMA1260D)
accelerometers on the SARD board.
Even after substituting the MPXH6400A
for the MPXM201GS, a mechanical
transducer was required to scale down
the pressure and isolate the water
Photo 2—The nozzle unit is the black box on the right.The
brass nipple contains the plunger assembly that reduces the
pressure and isolates the water side from the pressure sen-
sor.The gauge gathers data for the calibration look-up table.
www.circuitcellar.com
 pressure up to 58 psi of air (not water).
Thus, the external connection port
can’t be directly attached to the fire
hose stream, which is a stream of
water at up to 200 psi.
The tubing leading from the
MPXH6400A sensor to the external port
was cut to fit and then heated and
shrunk in place, forming an airtight,
Photo 3—Starting at the upper left and working clockwise,
the components include an On/Off switch, the cross-con- stable connection to the external port.
nect board, the battery (all three on the top), the evaluation All of the posts supporting the boards Photo 4—The front of the pump panel unit includes a
board on the bottom, the red push button, and the red and battery inside the box were epoxied display, a red LED, a power switch, and a button for set-
LED on the left. The LCD assembly is in the middle. in place rather than screwed through the ting the pressure.
box. With the lid sealed in place, the
from the transducer. external port is the only entrance to the This was built with off-the-shelf parts
The PPU includes a 2 × 24 LCD for box. This isolates the nozzle unit from the local hardware store, so precise
displaying pressure readings and mes- from the firefighting environment. calculations involving the spring
sages. It also has an ultra-bright red Output from the MPXH6400A sensor constants, air volumes, and other key
LED for indicating problems, a large is connected to a free A/D port (AD3) parameters weren’t available in advance.
push button for indicating a set pres- on the MC9S08GT60. A 5-V power Instead, a gauge I placed on the high-
sure (SP), and a toggle switch for turn- source supplies it, so the output volt- pressure input to the chamber enabled
ing on the power. age can exceed the input limit (VDD = me to create a look-up table to perform
The PPU continuously polls the noz- 3 V) on the processor. But the input the mapping from output readings to
zle for data, updating its displays with pressure is limited to less than half the actual nozzle pressure. Photo 2
every successful reception. The LCD the device range, so a voltage divider shows the completed assembly.
normally displays the latest (instanta- isn’t needed to protect the A/D input. Photo 3 shows the inside of the
neous) pressure reading on the first line Plumbing was needed to step the pump panel unit. The off-the-shelf
and the average of the previous 16 read- pressure down and isolate the water LCD assembly has a 4-bit data path
ings on the second line. If the red but- stream from the pressure sensor. I and 3-bit control path from the proces-
ton is pressed, the current average tapped into a hose coupling and point- sor. In addition to those seven lines,
pressure becomes the set pressure. If ed a brass elbow upstream to give the LED and push button switch each
the average pressure is more than 10 psi access to the water stream. From there take one I/O bit from the processor,
above or below the set pressure, a the stream enters a brass nipple where using nine of the 10 bits brought out
“Pressure out of range” message appears a plunger assembly keeps the water on to J107 on the evaluation board. All
on the first line of the LCD and the red one side while being supported by a 10 lines from J107 as well as all 14 bits
LED illuminates. These error indications spring on the other. The plunger com- from the LCD assembly are brought
will remain until the average returns to presses the air in the spring chamber via ribbon cables to a connectorized
the set pressure range or the red button is while the spring counters the pressure, cross-connect board where connecting
pressed again to clear the set pressure. providing the reduction to the working wires and resistors are placed. Power
Other messages that may appear on pressure range. and ground lines are also distributed
the first line include “No on the cross-connect board.
signal from nozzle!” and Power is derived from the
“Nozzle out of control!” Freescale breakaway power
Each message is also Nozzle unit (NU) board supplied with a 9-V
accompanied by the illumi- battery.
MMA6261Q MMA1260D
nation of the red LED. The x- and y-axis z-axis Photo 4 shows the front
NozzleMon doesn’t have Accelerometer Accelerometer of the pump panel unit.
Pump panel unit (PPU)
audible output because the Working pump operators typi-
SARD Red LED
environments that pump 13192-EVB cally wear gloves and aren’t
Red push button
operators find themselves 4 inclined to deal with small
in are usually noisy. MPXH6400A LCD controls, so I chose the front
Pressure sensor
panel interface for its sim-
HARDWARE SPECIFICS plicity and ease of operation.
Air pressure from hose line
The system’s design is sim- water pressure transducer The power switch is a large
ple (see Figure 1). Let’s first toggle. The large pressure
examine the nozzle unit (see set button is easy to push.
Figure 1—With all the communication network interface complexity managed on the EVB
Photo 1). The MPXH6400A and SARD boards, the system design is simple. The PPU is easy to use. The NU can The bright red LED is visi-
sensor reads the absolute easily manage other sensors to provide even more information to the pump operator. ble even in daylight.

www.circuitcellar.com CIRCUIT CELLAR® Issue 184 November 2005 21

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
The software for this project is
based on the lighting demonstration
software that comes with Freescale’s
SMAC package. The pump panel
unit’s code simply sends out a polling
message for the nozzle unit to respond
and then waits for a response or a
timeout. The only possible responses
from the nozzle unit are either a noz-
zle pressure to report or a “nozzle out
of control” message, which is encoded
as a nozzle pressure of 255 psi (an oth-
erwise impossible reading).
Managing the front panel switches
and displays is a straightforward
process, especially because the LCD
assembly contains a Hitachi
HD44780U controller that’s compati-
ble with the routines included in the
LCD interface in the SMAC package.
More sophisticated communication and
display management will be required
with multiple nozzles to monitor.
Multiple nozzles can be accommo-
dated in the same software structure
by polling to see how many nozzles
are enabled and adjusting the front
panel to display the pressure and state
of the nozzles. Polling each of the noz-
zles enables the pump panel unit to
control the flow of the data and man-
age the available bandwidth as opposed
to having the nozzle units broadcast
continuously. This should keep enough
bandwidth available for other 802.15.4
applications to be used on the fire scene.
The only computations performed
by the pump panel unit are the cur-
rent average pressure and the status of
the set pressure warning. The average
pressure is the sum of the last 16 valid
readings right-shifted four places. The
set pressure is determined by storing
the current average when you depress
the red button. After it’s set, the cur-
rent average is compared with the
stored pressure upon each valid pres-
sure reading. If the current average is
more than 10 psi above or below the
set pressure, the LED lights up and a
message appears.
The nozzle unit code is also simple.
It waits for a polling request from the
pump panel unit and takes readings
from its sensors when a request is
received. The response is a single byte
that’s either the current pressure or a
22 Issue 184 November 2005
Listing 1—Read the ADC channel for the pressure and use the look-up table to adjust for calibration.
ATD1PE=0x8b; // Enable desired ADC channels (AD3 for pressure,
// AD0, AD1, AD7 for x,y,z)
ATD1C=0xE0; // Set prescale to 4-, 8-bit conversion
ATD1SC = 0x03; // Read pressure
while ((ATD1SC & 0x80) != 0x80){}
pressure = ATD1RH;
// Adjust pressure with calibration data
pressure = lut[pressure-81]; // Offset to zero - then index into
// calibration table
flag that the nozzle is out of control.
The pressure value returned is derived
from using the actual reading from the
sensor to index into a look-up table of
values that was collected during the
device’s calibration (using the pressure
gauge mounted on the brass nipple).
Listing 1 shows the code to read the
pressure sensor and index into the
look-up table. Keeping the response
payload to a single byte reduces the
required bandwidth and pump panel
unit’s computational requirements.
FUTURE MODIFICATIONS
The design I’ve described in this
article is truly a prototype—more of a
proof-of-concept than a ready-for-pro-
duction model. Although the firefight-
ers who have seen the NozzleMon
work have been enthusiastic about
using it, it isn’t ready yet for real sce-
narios. It wouldn’t be practical to
enter a burning structure with a hunk
of plumbing and a plastic box hanging
from your nozzle. And although using
only the on-board antennas on the
SARD and evaluation board gives fine
reception over a modest distance
under good conditions, a real fire
scene may involve significant dis-
tances and suboptimal conditions.
To be practical, the nozzle unit has
to be incorporated in the nozzle itself.
The handle of most fire nozzles is a
solid stem just waiting to be stuffed
Nozzle
NU = ZigBee
end device
ZigBee router
PPU = ZigBee
coordinator
Figure 2—Inexpensive ZigBee routers at the hose cou-
plings ensure good connectivity between the pump
panel unit and the nozzle unit (and other devices that
may be developed and used to fight fires).
CIRCUIT CELLAR®
with electronics. Incorporating the pres-
sure reduction/water isolation in the
body of the nozzle would be easy, and,
of course, the local pressure gauge and
external plumbing would be eliminated.
Integrating electronics in the nozzle
body would enable even more func-
tionality. You could implement a han-
dle grasp indicator with a Freescale
MC33794 e-field imaging IC. This
would help determine if the nozzle is
out of control. For example, if the
accelerometers indicate rapid motion
and there is nothing gripping the han-
dle, that’s a pretty good indication of a
loss of control. With nozzle-mounted
electronics, other operational parameters
could be sent back to the pump panel
unit such as the position of the valve
and the selection of the stream type.
To increase the radio’s distance and
improve reliability in hazardous envi-
ronments, you can use an inexpensive
hose-coupling repeater. Typical fire hoses
are 50′ long. Incorporating a ZigBee
router node in the female hose cou-
plings would ensure that the next net-
work node would be no more than 50′
away. Leveraging ZigBee’s self-organ-
izing network topology (with the
pump panel unit as the ZigBee coordi-
nator and the nozzle units as reduced
function devices) makes for a fast,
flexible, and reliable fire scene network.
With repeaters already scattered
around the fire scene, other ZigBee
devices could be developed to leverage
the network infrastructure. ZigBee
devices could monitor things such as
the performance of a self-contained
breathing apparatus (SCBA—an air
pack), a firefighter’s health (e.g., blood
pressure, temperature, and respiration
rate), and fire conditions (e.g., temper-
ature and air composition). It even
may be possible to incorporate pres-
www.circuitcellar.com
sure sensors in the hose-coupling for its support and encouragement as go to ftp://ftp.circuitcellar.com/pub/
devices, allowing for the immediate I worked on this project. Circuit_Cellar/2005/184.
determination of the location of a
Mitchell Levinn is an electrical engi-
hose line problem within 50′. Having
neering consultant who specializes in SOURCES
live data from inside the fire scene
embedded controllers and custom 2 × 24 LCD (LCD-107)
would be a powerful tool for making
designs. He also serves as a volunteer All Electronics (distributor)
tactical firefighting decisions. And,
firefighter and emergency medical www.allelectronics.com
most importantly, it would make the
technician in his community. You may
fire environment safer for firefighters. 13192-EVB, MC13192 SARD board,
contact Mitchell at cc@levinn.com.
Figure 2 shows how the ZigBee devices MMA6261Q and MMA1260D
would be placed around the fire scene. accelerometers, and MPXH6400A sensor
Power management is another thing PROJECT FILES Freescale Semiconductor
needing modification to prepare the To download the code and schematics, www.freescale.com
design for real-world scenarios. One of
the original design goals was to have
the NozzleMon function transparently
for the interior firefighter. A firefighter
shouldn’t have to go through extra steps
to enable the NozzleMon’s functionality.
He should be able to use the nozzle
(and other equipment) just as before.
In order to avoid having a power-on
switch that must be activated manually,
a pressure-activated switch would be
used to conserve battery power when
the system isn’t in use. This would
ensure power is applied when the noz-
zle is active. Having the nozzle unit and
the intermediate routers power on auto-
matically when the hose line is charged
to at least a few pounds per square inch
would satisfy the transparency require-
ment and conserve battery power.

INTEGRATION
The ZigBee platform coupled with
the wide array of Freescale transducers
is an effective system that will bring
much-needed automation and data
collection capabilities to the fire
scene. Ever more sophisticated fire-
fighting devices and equipment (from
nozzles to trucks to chemical fire sup-
pressants) are continually being put
into service, but it’s difficult to inte-
grate the new technologies with the
existing apparatus and, more impor-
tantly, people.
Being able to provide real-time oper-
ating data with systems like the
NozzleMon will make firefighters
safer and more effective. It will also
enable the efficient use of firefighting
technologies. I

Author’s note: Special thanks to the

Hoag’s Corners Volunteer Fire
Company of East Nassau, New York,

www.circuitcellar.com CIRCUIT CELLAR® Issue 184 November 2005 23