2nd IEEE International Conference on Engineering and Technology (ICETECH), 17th & 18th March 2016, Coimbatore, TN,
India.
Android based Wireless sensor network
Application for Airborne Platforms (AWAAPS)
Praveen Kumar
Department of Electronics Engineering
Defence Institute of Advanced Technology (DU)
Pune, India
praveenjaps@rediffmail.com
Abstract - Nowadays, in any airborne platform like Fighters,
helicopter or a transport aircraft there are thousands of sensors
which are used to measure various parameters (temperature,
level, pressure, positions and more) and the results are then
conveyed through the wires to the on board computers that
process them. Therefore, the interconnections of multiple sensors
results in a great amount of cables (normally, hundreds of
kilometres of cables are used), generating high complexity (both
in design and production), high weight and high costs. The aim of
this project is to design a WSN on an airborne platform which
will then be monitored through a mobile application on ground.
Implementing a WSN based system is cost effective as the system
is completely wireless leading the way for additional benefits like
savings in weight, space, and cost from cabling as compared to a
wired sensor network. Monitoring through a mobile application
will prevent accidents or damage to the airborne platform by
timely alerting the ground based user, who can then take suitable
action to avert catastrophe in case of emergency. The proposal
would also entail an overall addition for effective performance of
manpower with an increased efficiency and a greater awareness
of operational and equipment health status of the platform. The
mobile App for analysis and monitoring of sensor data can
further enhance the performance.
Keywords— AWAAPS, WSN, ZigBee, Android, Mobile
application
I. INTRODUCTION
Information technology advancements, such as the GPS,
sensors and wireless networking, have brought the aviation
industry to a level wherein intelligence gathered though the
various sensors in the platform are no longer limited only to
the pilots in the cockpit but also to the authorized user on the
ground for better appreciation of aircraft information. With its
pioneering systems and applications for data collection,
processing and distribution, the WSN based aircraft
guarantees to improve the safety, capacity, efficiency and
environmental footprint of air haulage. Wireless sensor
network (WSN), i.e., smart sensors with radio interfaces,
guarantees unprecedented operational benefits to monitor the
health of an airborne platform. The ‘Wireless Sensor
Network’ (WSN) are spatially distributed independent sensors
called as ‘nodes’ to monitor physical or environmental
conditions such as temperature ,sound ,pressure, level etc. and
concurrently pass the data through the network to a main
978-1-4673-9916-6/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
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K Krishna Naik
Department of Electronics Engineering
Defence Institute of Advanced Technology (DU)
Pune, India
krishnanaik@diat.ac.in
locaztion. Each node primarily consists of one or more
microcontrollers, CPUs or DSP chips and may contain
memory to store program and data. In order to communicate
the data collected, a RF transceiver (usually with a single
Omni-directional antenna) powered by an individual power
source (eg. Batteries and solar cells). A sensor node may also
accommodate various sensors and actuators. WSNs provide a
reliable, flexible and portable distributed data acquisition
means for the need of monitoring the airborne platform by
focussing on the design of intelligent sensor nodes, network
protocols and data processing technology. Each of the sensor
nodes of the WSN will communicate the acquired data with an
on board computer, which will then transmit the data through
RF data telemetry during the entire flight. On ground, this data
will be received and stored in a database in a computer server
class machine called the Central Monitoring Server (CMS) in the
maintenance workshop. The server application monitors the
data and alerts are generated as and when the values rises or
fall above or below certain acceptable limits..In order to allow
the remote interaction with the WSN as well as the reception
of generated alerts, we developed both, a mobile and a server
application, enabling the interaction to the WSN.
Internet access is nowadays available in all Smartphone
and the convenience of developing applications on the
Android platform makes Android an ideal market for our
application development.
To the best of my knowledge, there are no mobile
applications with the functionality offered by my proposed
solution. Much of the research is still focused on the
implementation of the WSN and not in the interaction with
such networks via mobile devices.
II. RELATED RESEARCH WORK
Nuno Moreira Marco VendaCatarina Silva Luis Marcelino
António Pereira et.al. “@Sensor - Mobile Application to
Monitor a WSN “in paper [1] of 2011 gives a detailed
information on Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) which
are emerging as a new paradigm, consisting in the
collection of information in a collaborative manner, where
independent sensor nodes collect and share information.
sensors are used to constantly monitor certain events like
temperature, and if some predefined value is reached, an
alert is generated. The control of generated events is
 2nd IEEE International Conference on Engineering and Technology (ICETECH), 17th & 18th March 2016, Coimbatore, TN, India.
recorded in a control station that interacts with the WSN.A
mobile and a server application was developed, enabling the
interaction to the WSN.
Won-Jae Yi, WeidiJia and Jafar Saniie et.al, “Mobile
Sensor Data Collector using Android Smartphone” in paper
[2] of 2012 gives an insight into how Android based smart
phones could be used as sensor data collector and for
processes other than voice and SMS. The paper introduces
concept of a microcontroller system that communicates via
Bluetooth with the smart phone for data collections, and
streams data simultaneously to the central server for data
storage and analysis via the Internet to monitor the patient
status via wireless data transmission.
Li Ma, Lei Gu and Jin Wang “Research and Development
of Mobile Application for Android Platform” in paper [3] of
2014 gives information that developing of hardware of mobile
is getting better, the performance index is much higher than
the actual requirements of the software configuration.
Phone’s features more depend on software. As the Android
operating system is getting more popular, the application
based on Android SDK attracts much more attention. This
article presents the application by eliminating the redundancy.
Mahfuzulhoq Chowdhury, Kamrul Hossain Patwary,
Ahmed Imteaj & Sulogna Chowdhury “Designing a Wireless
Sensor Network Using Smartphone as Data Source”, in paper
[4] of 2014. This paper sheds light on the possibility, scope
and benefits of using ‘Smartphones’ as ‘sensor nodes’ in a
‘Wireless Sensor Network’ (WSN). Nowadays all smart
phones are scattered everywhere and also they have sensors
integrated in them which can be used to detect humidity,
atmospheric pressure, temperature, accelerometer, gyroscope
& so on. This distribution of smart phones is analogous to a
WSN. The data collected in the smart phone is then sent to
the server by the user which can be further utilized for
public interest. This information can be derived either
from the sensor on the phone or from internet.
Krishna Sampigethaya, Radha Poovendran, Mingyan Li,
Linda Bushnell, Richard Robinson “Security of wireless
sensor network enabled health monitoring for future airplanes
“in paper [5] of 2008, suggests how wireless technologies are
potential drivers for future e-enabled airplane health
management (AHM) which is envisioned to be real-time,
continuous and proactive. This paper considers the beneficial
and secure use of wireless sensors and radio-frequency
identification system in AHM. The paper also identifies
vulnerabilities in e-enabled AHM that can pose concerns with
aircraft maintenance, present requirements and potential
solutions to mitigate emerging threats, and discuss major
challenges. The paper also presents some important issues
with potential use of wireless sensors for real-time aircraft
operation and control.
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Suhas Holla, Mahima M Katti “Android based mobile
application development and its security” in paper [6] of –
2012 .In this paper, Android mobile platform for the mobile
application development, layered approach and the details of
security information for Android is discussed. Google
released Android which is an open-source mobile phone
operating system with Linux-based platform. It consists of
the operating system, middleware, and user interface and
application software. Android is about to become the most
widely used OS on mobile phones but users need to take
care of security vulnerability .
Chris Jordan G. Aliac “Sensor Data Network Using
Android Mobile Devices”, in text [7] of 2012, The paper
presents a system that deploys lightweight Sensor Networks
easily based on widely available Android Devices. An
Android application is used to communicate with the on-board
sensors of the mobile device, collate the variety of sensor
readings to then be displayed on the device and sent to a
central server for data logging and analysis. To ensure data
reliability and redundancy, back up logs are saved within the
sensor devices and then later sent up the server or other live
sensor device via SMS message.
Mokhtar Aboelaze , Fadi Aloul “Current and Future
Trends in Sensor Networks: A Survey”, in paper[8] of 2012,
suggests that Sensor networks are used in many applications.
like military applications where they are used for surveillance
and target tracking. In industrial applications they are used in
monitoring hazardous chemicals. They are also used in
monitoring the environment and in early fire warning in
forests as well as seismic data collections. The paper also
discusses on current and new trends in sensor networks. It
also presents some of the challenges and future work in sensor
networks.
Rama K. Yedavalli, Rohit K. Belapurkar “Application of
wireless sensor networks to aircraft control and health
management systems” in paper [9] of 2011 suggests Use of
WSNs for both safety-critical and non-safety critical
distributed systems in an aircraft. Some of the many potential
benefits of using WSN for aircraft systems include weight
reduction, ease of maintenance and an increased monitoring
capability. This paper discusses the application of WSN for
several aircraft systems such as distributed aircraft engine
control, aircraft flight control, aircraft engine and structural
health monitoring systems. Description of each system along
with a discussion on the technological challenges and future
research directions for application of WSN in aircraft systems
are also discussed.
III. MOTIVATION
The sensor data of an aircraft as on today ,during an
operational or training sortie are available only to the pilot in
the cockpit in fighters/helicopters /transport aircrafts. If the
sensor data which is reflecting the aircrafts current real time
health is made available to the concerned technical crew on
 2nd IEEE International Conference on Engineering and Technology (ICETECH), 17th & 18th March 2016, Coimbatore, TN, India.
the ground and when that information is available on a
Smartphone will have added advantages and benefits:
A. Normally the aircraft technical parameters are available to
the technical crew only post flight after the aircraft lands. It is
required that the Aircraft health be monitored not only on the
ground but also during a sortie as well. The technical crew can
then initiate emergency actions in case the crew feels that the
parameters are greater/lesser than the acceptable max/min
threshold values like activating the CFTs, arrester barrier,
rerouting the aircraft to the nearest airbase etc.
B. Since the sensed parameters values are stored in a server in
a database, the aircrafts health can be studied for a longer
period of time.
C. The map based pictorial representation along with the
geographical coordinates will give a real time distribution of
the aircrafts and will enable the technical crew to study the
parameter variations in different geographical areas and
atmospheric conditions.
IV. PROPOSAL APPROACH
To develop a mobile application that would allow users
monitor and analyse the state of a WSN installed in an aircraft
To accomplish this , there is a need to link some essential
components, such as a WSN and a proper interaction
application, an Internet connection (Wifi connectivity), a
server with the proper Web Services and a relational Data
Base and finally a smart phone. This section presents the
general architecture of the proposed solution, showing the
relationship between the various components, as we can see in
fig 1.
A. The proposed architecture as shown in fig 1, consists of
several elements that communicate with each other,
gathering information about all sensor nodes, in order to be
able to remotely monitor and control a WSN. Sensor
nodes can be installed in any airborne platforms like aircraft,
UAV, aerostat etc. A set of sensors integrated on a circuit
board forms a ‘station’. These stations are then installed at
various places in an aircraft whose critical parameters are to
be studied.
B. All the stations and its sensor associated circuitry will
continuously transmit its sensed data to the receiver station
through a wireless communication link using the wireless
communication protocol to a receiver control station within
the aircraft. The receiver station will in turn relay the data
through data telemetry to the CM server. The CM server is
aware of the distribution of stations along with sensors
belonging to each aircraft which are distributed
geographically. When installing/ configuring a WSN it is
necessary to determine the exact location of a station and to
this end placement for each sensor.
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Fig. 1 Block diagram of the proposed architecture
C. The mobile application called AWAAPS is to be
developed that would allow the users to select one of the
many aircraft in the geographical location and display its
parameters. The app should also be able to plot a statistical
representation of the data collated. The App should allow only
authorized users with an access to the Mobile Application.
D. As shown in Fig 1, the mobile application uses the
Internet/Wifi-connectivity to communicate with the CM
server. This connection can be made through 3G or Wi-
Fi, allowing the user to communicate with the control
station anywhere within the network coverage area. In turn,
the control station will communicate with the WSN and
forward the requested information to the mobile application.
Since the application is dependent on Web Services
communications to perform most of its functionalities (e.g.
determine a specific sensor value), a poor connection to the
server can occasionally result in a holdup to the
application's performance. Thus, the application is mostly
dependent on the network´s speed and the server's
performance returning all the requested information, resulting
in a key component for a smooth operation. In the online
mode the user is able to view geographical distribution of the
aircrafts with the sensors, sensor values and graphical image
view. When running the mobile application, the battery
lifetime is dependent on many circumstances, like the
number of times the application is run, the number of
requests that the user performs, the need to read and write
information on local database and the number of image views.
Since the most of these actions depend on a network
connection (Wi-Fi) usually battery-intensive, a high usage
of the application can greatly reduce the mobile's battery
life time.
V. IMPLEMENTATION
In this section we give a brief overview of the implementation
of the desired solution carried out in lab environment and the
block diagram is as shown in Fig 2.
 2nd IEEE International Conference on Engineering and Technology (ICETECH), 17th & 18th March 2016, Coimbatore, TN, India.
A. WSN: In order to implement the proposed solution a WSN
is required. The WSN prototype was developed consisting of
the sensors, microcontroller, and ZigBee modules.
Fig. 2 Block diagram of the implemented architecture
ZigBee primarily operates in the 2.4 Ghz, 915 MHz and 868
MHz (license-free ISM band) and can provide a maximum
network speed of 250Kbps. The power consumption was less
and more energy efficient when compared to Bluetooth
communication. Zigbee modules supports longer range(upto
50mtrs), while Bluetooth networks whose range is small (upto
10mtrs). Also, Zigbee’s almost instant network join times of
30 milliseconds is more appropriate for executing critical
applications while Bluetooth’s longer join time(3 seconds) is
unfavourable. Using three different sensors gas, level and
temperature sensor along with a ZigBee module which was
configured in transmit only functionality formed a ‘ Sensing
station’ were utilised in the WSN. A group of three such
stations were designed which were installed in an airborne
platform at required locations as desired. The paper discusses
such three locations like cockpit, star board and port side of
the aircraft. The temperature, gas and level sensors are
integrated in a PCB along with the microcontroller. The
microcontroller reads the sensed data through its input ports
and outputs the data to the receiver control station in a specific
fixed pattern viz. $S1, 25, 247,155 through its output ports.
Similarly a receiver control station was also designed which
consists of a ZigBee module configured in receive only
functionality. The receiver control station receives the data
from the station and then retransmits it to the Central
monitoring server. It is imperative to mention that no GPS
transmitter module was integrated in the PCB as this would
have escalated the project cost. Therefore the designed mobile
application incorporated Google maps feature to resolve the
latitude and longitude of the smart phone. In the application
this information was altered minutely and used to configure
three different aircrafts in the Google map. A practical
scenario would have necessitated need for a Data telemetry
link between the control station in the aircraft and the CM
server on the ground. As this is not possible within the lab
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constraints, a serial communication link via a serial data cable
connecting the Receiver control station and COM port of the
CM server was made.
B. CM server or Control Station: The control station
represents an interface between the mobile application and the
WSN. While it interacts with the WSN on one side and
records sensor data values corresponding to different aircrafts,
and on the other side it responds to mobile application’s
requests. The mobile application was developed using the
Android Suite and XAMPP. All communications between the
control station and mobile devices are done via Web Services.
XAMPP is a free and open source cross-platform web server
solution stack package , it presents a lesser burden on
communication and requires no additional toolkits on the
Android platform, being based on the most common
communication architecture of the Internet (HTTP). The
coding in the control station is based on Android Studio which
is an integrated development environment (IDE) for
developing for the Android platform. Android studio which is
written in Java has good support for XAMPP web services
and the use of such language allows portability across
multiple platforms, making the control station adaptive to
various development environments. The database was
developed using the MySQL which is an open-source
relational database management system (RDBMS and has the
ability to run on multiple platforms. Program modules were
separately written in PHP to access database and as per users
requirement the modules were run in the android project to
generate requisite results.
C. Mobile Application: The developed application allows
users to study the aircrafts current status by studying the
sensor data like its present position (latitude and longitude),
temperature, gas and level of fuel. The application is
developed in a manner to make it user friendly and to ensure a
good data presentation.
1) The initial display provides the user with geographical
map and aircrafts if any flying within the communication
zone. Three simulated aircrafts were displayed on the Geo
map. The user can directly interact with the map clicking on to
aircraft markers to give the users access to the sensors in that
aircraft for a comprehensive study of sensor data, it is also
possible to display graph that represents the distribution of
sensor data corresponding to a particular aircraft with time.
2) As shown in Fig 3, we used a MYSQL database in the
control station. This database is used to store the user’s
authentication information and the data from the sensors
from different aircrafts.
3) When the user accesses the App on his smart phone he
gets connected to the control station and the various user
friendly buttons allow the user to easily browse through the
app as the mobile application mainly depends on the
interaction with web services. In order to invoke the web
services provided by the control station, HTTP connections
are used, as we can see in Fig 3 Using the Internet, the control
 2nd IEEE International Conference on Engineering and Technology (ICETECH), 17th & 18th March 2016, Coimbatore, TN, India.

station can take some time to send a response, depending on III. SIMULATION AND RESULTS
the network’s quality. To avoid blocking the application
UI, we resorted to the use of AsyncTask class, "An
asynchronous task is defined by a computation that runs
on a background thread and whose result is published on
the UI thread which is the main thread of execution for your
application " . Depending on the request made by the user, the
corresponding web service will be invoked, for example, if the
user wishes to know the current value of a sensor, the HTTP
GET request is sent with the identification of the desired
sensor. On the server side, upon receiving the request,
the control station will communicate with the
WSN/database and obtain sensors current /past values. After
receiving the sensor’s response, the control station will create
the proper XML and forward the response to the mobile
application. This communication process is illustrated in fig 3.
The system will generate an audio-visual warning whenever
the value of the parameter exceeds threshold set as per the
aircraft requirement in the application. With the exception of
image files, all content sent by the control station is in XML Fig. 4(a) Basic view of the App Icon on mobile desktop screen
format. The use of XML enables the application scalability to
new types of content and other platforms. When making a
particular request, the mobile application knows what
XML format is expected to be received in response. After
receiving the content, the mobile application will parse the
received XML.
The application's user interface was designed, to avoid
users losing too much time looking for, how to interact
with the application. Therefore more screens with
organized information were used rather than using fewer Fig. 4(b) Aircrafts currently in the AOR
screens with too much information.

Fig. 4(c) Aircraft lat/long being displayed along with its call sign

Fig. 3 Block diagram of the control station functional plane

All the menus are followed by a proper icon or a description

to give the user a good perception of what is intended in each Fig. 4(d) Aircraft sensor data being displayed along with its location S1
display. The main screen was designed to present the aircraft
information on a map in a very simple way, avoiding visual
confusion. The application is able to run in all smart phones,
being capable to adjust all the contents to different resolutions.

Fig. 4(e) Aircraft sensor data being displayed along with its location S2

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 2nd IEEE International Conference on Engineering and Technology (ICETECH), 17th & 18th March 2016, Coimbatore, TN, India.
Fig.4(f) Aircraft sensor data being displayed along with its location S3
Fig.4(g) Aircraft sensor statistics being displayed along with its call sign
yes
Fig. 5 Flow chart of the User Application access
IV. CONCLUSION
The proposed solution to monitor the WSN on board an
airborne platform through a Android base application in a
smart phone will provide vital information real-time which
would be vital in determining the aircraft health. Wireless
multi-sensor monitoring system utilizing sensor nodes and
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ZigBee represents a low cost and low power consumption
method for detection of parameters in an airborne platform.
The biggest advantage of the wireless sensors is that they can
be housed easily in inaccessible areas and would efficiently
give output .To this end, the placement of sensor nodes in an
aircraft should be carefully based on the propagation loss,
fading effects and multipath reflection from aircraft structures.
Foremost, before implementing the WSN, the RF path loss
model should be arrived as per the design of the aircraft. Since
most of the equipment’s as well as aircraft bulkheads are
made of steel, the data delivery loss caused by the fading and
multipath effect should be considered before the actual
placement of sensor nodes. As a part of the future works, IR-
Camera could also be integrated with the sensor node to
generate a visual image of the ambience.
REFERENCES
[1] Nuno Moreira ,Marco Venda, Catarina Silva,Luis Marcelino, António
Pereira, “@Sensor - Mobile Application to Monitor a WSN”,
ieeexplore.ieee.orgCISTI, 2011 .
[2] Won-Jae Yi, Weidi Jia, and Jafar Saniie “Mobile Sensor Data Collector
using Android Smartphone” IEEE,2012
[3] Li Ma, Lei Gu and Jin Wang “Research and Development of Mobile
Application for Android Platform” International Journal of Multimedia
and Ubiquitous Engineering Vol.9, No.4, pp.187-198, 2014.
[4] Mahfuzulhoq Chowdhury, Kamrul Hossain Patwary, Ahmed Imteaj &
Sulogna Chowdhury “Designing a Wireless Sensor Network Using
Smartphone as Data Source”, The 9th International Forum on Strategic
Technology (IFOST), October 21-23, 2014, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
[5] Krishna Sampigethaya,Radha Poovendran , Mingyan Li , Linda Bushnell
, Richard Robinson “Security of wireless sensor network enabled health
monitoring for future airplanes” 26th International Congress of the
Aeronautical Sciences, ICAS 2008.
[6] Suhas Holla, Mahima M Katti “Android based mobile application
development and its security” International Journal of Computer Trends
and Technology- volume3Issue3- 2012
[7] Chris Jordan G. Aliac “Sensor Data Network Using Android Mobile
Devices”, http://onlinepresent.org/proceedings/vol4_2012/50.pdf
[8] Mokhtar Aboelaze , Fadi Aloul “Current and Future Trends in Sensor
Networks: A Survey”, paper presented at the second IFIP International
Conference on Wireless and Optical Communication Networks,2012
[9] Rama K. Yedavalli, Rohit K. Belapurkar “Application of wireless sensor
networks to aircraft control and health management systems” Article in
Journal of control theory and applications, February 2011.
Sqn Ldr Praveen Kumar was commissioned
into the Aeronautical Engineering
(Electronics) branch of Indian Air Force in
Jul 2004. He completed his Masters of
Science in Electronics, from Mangalore
University, Mangalore in 2002. He is
currently pursuing his Master of Technology degree in
‘Defence Electronic Systems from Defence Institute of
Advanced Technology, Pune. His area of interests includes
Wireless Sensor Networks and Computer Networking.
Dr K Krishna Naik received graduation
degree in Electronics & Communication
Engineering from Sri Krishnadevaraya
University, Anantapur in 2002, Post-
 2nd IEEE International Conference on Engineering and Technology (ICETECH), 17th & 18th March 2016, Coimbatore, TN, India.

graduation from Indian Institute of Information

Technology, Allahabad in 2004 and doctoral degree from
Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Anantapur, in
2010. Currently he is working as an Assistant Professor in
Electronics Engineering, Defence Institute of Advanced
Technology, Pune. His current areas of interests include
Electronic Warfare Applications, Software Defined Radio,
Wireless Networks, and Mobile Ad-Hoc Network.

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