Wireless Sensor Networks in Battlefield Based on ZigBee and Hand Gesture Recognition

Based on Accelerometer and Flex Sensors for

Soldiers' Status Monitoring for Army Future Combat System

Introduction
In order to realize the fusion of battlefield rescue and control system, that integrates the remote
soldier status monitoring, wireless vital signs acquisition, and positioning of soldiers on the “Line of Control”.
The soldiers' location and status are real time displayed on the electronic map. This system realized soldier
status monitoring, vital signs acquisition and soldier positioning on the “Line of Control”.

ZigBee wireless network employable on the LOC and wireless sensor network technology has been
known for scalability, carefree operation and easy installation. This project is planned to adopt ZigBee
wireless sensors network on the LOC scenario using the remote large-scale environment based on the
military requirement. Many sensors types are developed to save the soldier life under various critical
situations, different infrastructure of battlefield and dynamic fighting environment in the threat of war.

In recent years, the high technologies have been developed for military applications ranging from
soldier to automated vehicle to adaptive communication systems to support warfare. The next-generation
embedded sensors become the important devices to report real-time status in the battlefield, for example
vehicle position tracking sensor, soldier movement tracking sensor etc., Currently, there is a new trend to use
low-power wireless network technologies instead of dedicated solutions in many applications to reduce the
development costs and to facilitate the set up process. However, most of them employed soon-to-be-obsolete
wireless communication and few groups are interested in ZigBee technologies. Wireless sensor network
technology has been known for scalability, carefree operation and easy installation. Hence, our main
contribution in this paper will be described in the following sections:-
1. In order to manage and observe the soldiers and many vehicles in the battlefield, ZigBee localization
technique can be used to work in cooperation with GPS.
2. The medical service and health status sensors can be networked based on the ZigBee technology.
3. Flex sensor based gesture recognition system can be interfaced for easy communication.
4. Basic ZigBee wireless network, ZigBee physical communication layer and basic anti interception
solution.
 GPS tracking has become widely used in many application areas ranging from military, agriculture, and
security system to logistics and healthcare. GPS for soldier and warrior vehicle tracking has become a
revolutionary tool for modernization of battlefield today. The position recognition is useful for many activities
in the battlefield but data communication in the war zone frequently is too power consuming and can be
operated only in a point-to-point manner.

Gestures are a very spread mean of communication among people. There are two implementations of
gesture recognizing systems: Sensor based and Vision-based. The sensor-based solutions use accelerometers
or gyros for detecting the gestures. In this project we tend to present a hand gesture recognition system built
around an accelerometer sensor and flex sensors. The system is made by a sensing and transmitting. The
computer receives the data describing the motion trajectory and interprets it. It can be used in a more
complex human-computer friendly interface, in which the commands are given by gestures. The sensing and
transmitting part consists in the accelerometer and a micro-controller based system which transmits wireless
and the data is acquired from the sensor. The receiving part has the role to convert the received data into a
string which is sent to the PC Gestures are a very spread mean of communication among people.

The new concept of intelligent health care sensor network is set up in order to accumulate health care
information and alarm the commander when the sensors find the abnormal case for a soldier. This sensor
node can be set-up around the waist for better result to detect and predict the soldier posture. The pulse
sensor (heart rate and saturation of oxygen in blood sensor) can be installed around the soldier’s wrist or
finger tips. The extension of life sensor nodes consist of Temperature sensors mounted on the soldier skin.
Posture recognition sensor (accelerometer and Gyroscope sensor) detects the movement and soldier action
in the battlefield, such as falling down, lying down or bumping against from bomb or bullet. This posture
recognition is very useful to determine whether the soldier is under a critical situation in order to make a
better decision for medic team aid.
BLOCK DIAGRAM

KEYPAD

LCD 16X2 ZIGBEE

PIC18
Microcontroller
Pulse Sensor
Flex Sensor 1 I
N
Flex Sensor 2
B
U Body
Flex Sensor 3 I Temperature
L Sensor
T
Flex Sensor 4
A
D GPS
Accelerometer C

Figure.1: Soldiers communication module.

KEYPAD

PIC18 ZIGBEE
Microcontroller

LCD 16X2

Figure.2: Another Soldiers module dummy for Demonstration

PC ZIGBEE

Figure.3: Commanders module or the Base Station

The system consists of two parts:-
Soldier’s module- To monitor the parameters and for communication with other soldier’s module and
commander’s module. This consists of a PIC18 Microcontroller interfaced with Sensors like, Flex sensors,
Accelerometer, pulse sensor and temperature sensor. It is also interfaced with Zigbee for communication
and GPS for tracking the location. The system consists of LCD to display messages and keypad for various
controls.

Commander’s Module- To keep track of all the soldiers and to send emergency messages for guidance. This
consists of a PC with an Application running on it and interfaced to Zigbee for Wireless Communication.

This project will facilitate the understanding of the following topics:

 Microchip's PIC Hardware Designing.

 Coding in C.
 Interfacing GPS with micro-controller.
 Interfacing Zigbee with micro-controller.
 PCB designing and concepts.
 UART Interfacing
 Maintaining of database using Microsoft Access.
 Keypad interfacing.
 Interfacing sensors for temperature and pulse bend and tilt using ADC.
 LCD

Signature of the guide Signature of the student