ISSN 2348–2370

Vol.07,Issue.07,
July-2015,
Pages:1203-1207

www.ijatir.org

Development on Gas Leak Detection and Location System Based on

Wireless Sensor Networks
C. SURESH1, L. R. SIVA2
1
PG Scholar, Dept of ECE, Sri KS Raju Institute of Technology and Sciences, Hyderabad, Telangana, India.
2
Associate Professor, Dept of ECE, Sri KS Raju Institute of Technology and Sciences, Hyderabad, Telangana, India.

Abstract: Develops a gas leak detection and location
system for the production safety in Petrochemical Industry.
The system is based on Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN);
it can collect the data of monitoring sites wirelessly and
sent to the computer to update values in the location
software. Consequently, it can give a real-time detective of
the potential risk area, collect the data of a leak accident
and locate the leakage point. However the former systems
can not react in time, even can not obtain data from an
accident and locate accurately [1]. The paper has three
parts, first, gives the overall system design, and then
provides the approaches on both hardware and software to
achieve it.
(RFD). The supervising software on the control center is
based on TI’s Z-Location Engine, it displays the location and
the status messages of all the monitoring sites, and it is a
graphical description of the geographical information of the
entire potential risk area. The coordinator is also a gateway;
it acquires all the information from FFD and RFD, and then
transmits to the control center to update the nodes’ status
messages on the supervising software. Besides, it broadcasts
instructions from control center. FFD is a router, it s a node
that links groups together and provides multi-hoping for
messages. It associates with other routers and end-devices,
while a RFD is just an end device, where the rubber hits the
road—sensors.

Keywords: Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN); Leak

Detection; Zigbee; Sensors; Location; CC2430.

I. INTRODUCTION
With the continuing growth of the forces of social
production and the gradual awakening of the people’s
consciousness of the importance of production safety, a
series of measures have been put forth to ensure worker’s
safety. In high-risk industries such as chemical, electricity
and cement industries, small negligence may cause heavy
economic losses and serious environmental pollution.
Therefore, many large companies, including PetroChina
and Sinopec, are pumping large amounts of funds to
upgrade existing equipment in order to remove the hidden
danger. However, there are still some shortcomings on
real-time monitoring and on data transmission and
accurate location of a leakage point when an accident
happens. Mainly because: most of the current equipments
are based on wired networks, it is backward in technology
and hard to be deployed; the technology of data
acquisition in accidents is also backward and so it is hard
to locate the leakage point [2]. These problems can be
solved with the help of WSN. WSN has absolute Fig. 1. System Structure.
superiority on data acquisition and transmission.
When using the system, there are two application modes:
II. STRUCTURE OF THE SYSTEM fixed-point monitoring and dynamic deployment. Fixed-point
The gas leak detection and location system consists of monitoring is to fix some terminal nodes near the potential
three parts: control center, coordinator and terminal risk areas, such as: joins of containers, reaction kettles and
nodes. There are two kinds of terminal nodes: full- pipelines and places that are easy to be eroded or broken. In
function device (FFD) and reduced-function device this way, the system can track the monitoring data for these
Copyright @ 2015 IJATIR. All rights reserved.
 C. SURESH, L. R. SIVA
areas round-the-clock or in one time period. Leakage is the
main problem when conveying gases through pipelines. In order to achieve lower power consumption, the radio RF
Trace leakage is mainly caused by erosion, bad connection module has two crystals: a main 32M crystal XTAL1 used in
and external forces and so on; it is a hidden fire danger or operation mode and a secondary crystal used in sleep mode.
causes of other serious accidents. But it is hard to find out. Just as shown in Fig. 3. Unbalanced antenna is used in the
By means of this method, it is easy to warn ruinous nodes. Therefore, a balun should be used in order to optimize
accidents caused by leakage. Dynamic deployment is use performance. In the hardware design, the balun is
in a leakage accident. Throw some terminal nodes through implemented using low-cost discrete inductors and capacitors
ejection of a robot or at some height, and then all the [4]. As is shown in Fig. 3, it consists of C341, L341, L321 and
information of the distribution of temperature and gas L331 together with a PCB micro-strip transmission line (_/2-
thickness can be collected. The location of the leakage dipole), and will match the RF input/output to 50. The PCB
point can be known from the analysis of the information. design is shown in Fig. 4. This balun design can replace the
In the past, rescuers can not approach the accident spot in a balun component, and of course reduces the hardware costs.
long time because of the toxic gas, high temperature or Each sensor detecting module carries one kind of those
heavy fog. It is hard to rescue and deal with the problems sensitive sensors: sulfur dioxide, sulfureted hydrogen, carbon
in time. However, the system provides reference for an monoxide, alcohol and oxygen. Determined by the gas
effective rescue plan and can help to shorten salvage time. emission, one kind or more will be used when the system is
To make sure the transmission steady and reliable, the deployed. The power management module is composed of
topology of the system is mesh. When terminal nodes 3.6V lithium cell and voltage conversion circuit, it has two
cannot transmit data via some routers as a result of routing output channels provides different voltage and current supply
faults, they will judge the other routes and choose a new for the radio RF module and the sensor detecting module
one. separately. Part of the power management module schematic
III. SYSTEM DESIGN is shown in Fig. 5.
A. Hardware design
Each node in the system is composed of wireless radio
frequency (RF) module, sensor detecting module and
power management module. Its structure is shown in The
data transmission between radio RF modules is based on
IEEE802.15.4. In order to reduce the cost of system,
shorten product development cycle and lower the
difficulty, the factors including power consumption,
transmitting power, receiving sensitivity, chip costs,
protocol stack costs and the number of peripheral
components the chip need are mainly considered when
choose a chip. Finally, TI’s ZigBee chip CC2430 with
free protocol stack ZigBee-2006 is picked out. The
CC2430 combines the excellent performance of the
leading CC2420 RF transceiver with an industry-standard
enhanced 8051 MCU, its transmitting power is 1mw,
receiving sensitivity is -94dBm when the symbol error
ratio is 1%, current loss is less than 0.6 A when the
system is in standby mode, and its data rate is 240Kb/s
when the RF is 2.4GHz [3]. All the parameters meet the Fig3. Part of CC2430 Schematic.
demand of system design.

Fig4. The PCB design of balun.

Fig 2. Node Structure.
International Journal of Advanced Technology and Innovative Research
Volume.07, IssueNo.07, July-2015, Pages: 1203-1207
 Development on Gas Leak Detection and Location System Based on Wireless Sensor Networks
As a gateway, the coordinator has to communicate with
the control center, which is different from the terminal
nodes. So we need another communication port in hardware
design. This port should be widely used because this system
is not specially designed for some computer, SCM or PLC.
Therefore, RS-232 and USB is qualified for this. The RS-
232 and the USB communication circuit schematic is
separately shown in Fig. 6 and Fig.7.

B. Software design
ZigBee WSN has three kinds of nodes: the coordinator,
the router (or FFD) and the end device (or RFD). There is no
marked qualitative differences between them on hardware
design. The main difference is on communication software
design. As the gateway of the ZigBee WSN, coordinator
automatically initiates the formation of the network. After
that, it will wait on until all the nodes nearby finished joining
in the net [5]. Then the coordinator will sent instructions or
collect information such as the connection status, sensor data
Fig5.Part of the power management module and location data, and then sent them to the control center to
schematic. update value in the location software. All these processes are
completed in a specified number of regularly timed
execution cycles. The flow chart of coordinator is shown in
Fig. 8.

Fig6. The RS-232 schematic.

Fig8. The flow chart of coordinator.

The main difference between a router and an end device is

whether it provides multi-hoping for messages, and this
difference comes from program design. There are also
differences between routers and between end devices, they
carries different sensors and corresponding data gathering
Fig7. The USB circuit schematic.
International Journal of Advanced Technology and Innovative Research
Volume.07, IssueNo.07, July-2015, Pages: 1203-1207
 C. SURESH, L. R. SIVA
programs. The terminal nodes will search a present IV. RESULTS
network and apply for joining in, and then they will
search for the neighbor nodes and update the banding
table, acquisite information of sensor data and location,
and then send them to the control coordinator [5]. The
process of searching for, information acquisition and
wireless transmission is also in a specified number of
regularly timed execution cycles which is related with
that of the coordinator. The flow chart of router or end
device is shown in Fig. 9.

Fig10. Gas Leakage Under Initial Stage.

Fig11. Hardware and its peripheral.

Fig 9: The flow chart of router or end device. Fig12. Under working Condition.
International Journal of Advanced Technology and Innovative Research
Volume.07, IssueNo.07, July-2015, Pages: 1203-1207
 Development on Gas Leak Detection and Location System Based on Wireless Sensor Networks
V. CONCLUSION
A new gas leak detection and location system was
developed; it compromises sensitive sensors and ZigBee
WSN which is smart, low-cost, low-power and low-
maintenance. In two modes, this system can monitor the
gas leakage sensitively, get the data from a scene of the
accident and locate the leakage point. Based on WSN, the
system is easy to be deployed and overcomes the
shortcomings on current systems. It is used to improve
the rescue quality and shorten the time for rescue.
Therefore it can compensate for the weaknesses of
current systems.
VI. REFERENCES
[1] Xia Haibo, Zhang Laibin, “Development Actualities of
Pipeline Leak-detection Technologies at Home and
Abroad,” Oil & Gas Storage and Transportation, 2001,
20(1). 1-5. (in Chinese).
[2] Li Wenjun, Wang Xueying, “Status Quo and Prospects
of Detection and Location Technology for Oil & Gas
Pipeline Leak,” Petroleum Refinery Engineering, 2005,
35(9). 49-52. (in Chinese).
[3] IEEE Standards 802.15.4, The Institute of Electrical
and Electronics Engineers, Inc. 2003.10.
[4] A True System-on-chip solution for 2.4 GHz IEEE
802.15.4/ZigBee, Texas Instruments, 2006.
[5] Shahin Farahani, ZigBee Wireless Networks and
Transceivers, Newnespress, 2008. 25-32, 225-246.

International Journal of Advanced Technology and Innovative Research

Volume.07, IssueNo.07, July-2015, Pages: 1203-1207