WIRELESS COMMUNICATION
As an Innovation Technology for SMEs
Lenka Landryová, Miroslav Mahdal and Marek Babiuch
Department of Control Systems and Instrumentation, VSB-Technical University Ostrava
17. listopadu 15, Ostrava, Czech Republic
Keywords: Bluetooth, Electronic mobile unit, Java, J2ME, Mobile phone, Sensor, Service.
Abstract: This short paper briefly describes results of our research and a new application creation as a part of our
project work. One of the goals specified in the project is to develop simplified support tools for SMEs,
which facilitate processes both within the SME and externally with its partners, suppliers or customers. An
application for a mobile phone was developed, which is able to send data regarding the status of a monitored
object into an operator's centre. The cell phone either uses its own sensor, such as a GPS unit, etc., from
which data are sent directly to a central operator station or the ability to connect other wireless stations to a
mobile phone and send data from extra sensors such as motion, pressure, humidity, temperature sensors, etc.
The connection to a mobile phone is provided by Bluetooth wireless technology. Furthermore, the paper
suggests an example of how this application may improve a small company operation and service-
production processes.
1 INTRODUCTION
Wireless technologies represent a large area, which
is a desirable subject for a wide range of scientific
disciplines and application possibilities. Wireless
technologies also have become an integral part of
everyday life. In general, we find them in industrial,
commercial and home automation, as well as in
security technology, healthcare, and the automotive
industry, etc. We are talking about sectors, where
various types of wireless technologies were
successfully applied or are being applied. We would
like to focus on the use of these technologies to
support small and medium-sized companies.
The initial specifications for the design of a tool
were written based on the requirements to remotely
monitor employees who perform physically
demanding occupations, or are exposed to the risk of
injury. They could be professional drivers, delivery
service personnel, etc. These people are often at risk
of, for example, a traffic accident in the environment
in which they work. It can be the dangerous collision
of vehicles, persons and vehicles, fallings down with
subsequent injuries, in most cases they are
unpredictable and therefore they can not be avoided.
By monitoring and evaluating deviations from the
normal state these situations can be quickly
responded to and provide immediate assistance.
A special group of end users for such tool are
companies directly dealing with and helping the
elderly, handicapped or otherwise disadvantaged
people. The designed and developed system is
intended for use by small and medium-sized
companies partnering in our project, however, it
provides a relatively large potential for practical use
regarding service providing area. With further
extension of the design specifications for an
implementation to support small and medium-sized
enterprises, mobile phones can be used in cases for
monitoring and measuring variables in industrial
equipment, followed by the sending of data to the
remote central unit for processing. In this case a
functional unit for data collection and wireless
transmission was created. The above mentioned
system is using wireless Bluetooth and GSM (Global
System for Mobile Communications) technologies.
2 AN APPLICATION DESIGN
The easiest way to monitor the status of an employee
and generate an event in the case of occurred danger
is to use a mobile phone. Almost everyone has it. To
be able to monitor unexpected events, an
195
Landryová L., Mahdal M. and Babiuch M..
WIRELESS COMMUNICATION - As an Innovation Technology for SMEs.
DOI: 10.5220/0003441901950198
In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Software and Database Technologies (ICSOFT-2011), pages 195-198
ISBN: 978-989-8425-76-8
Copyright
c
 2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

acceleration sensor is needed. For testing the sensor
in a mobile phone, Nokia E72 was selected, which is
also equipped with a GPS (Global Positioning
System) receiver used in a mobile phone to identify
your location and measure distances. The device
also supports A-GPS (Assisted GPS), i.e. the
possibility of obtaining additional data over a packet
data connection. This helps in calculating the
coordinates of an actual device location. When
service is activated, the device receives information
about satellites from an assistance data server over
a cellular network and using these data it can get
a real GPS position much faster. The data from the
server with A-GPS are loaded only when needed. To
use the packet data connection the device must have
defined an internet access point to the Internet.
2.1 Using an Acceleration Sensor in
Mobile Phones
The mobile phone we selected has a Symbian
operating system, version 9.3, and our software was
developed in the programming Java environment
(J2ME). We named our newly developed application
F-SME-GPS (FutureSME GPS)
After switching an application on in the mobile
phone, the GPS receiver is activated and will find
the current location of your mobile phone, see
Figure 1. For our application we reprogrammed the
acceleration sensor’s dead band for the value to ±
1.5 g.
Up to this default value any event occurring with
the mobile phone makes no change, which can be
perceived as the normal state of the mobile phone.
After exceeding this set value any event is
evaluated as the limit (for example a fall or hit of a
person carrying the mobile phone or a crash) and
Figure 1: F-SME-GPS application finds the current
location.
data from the accelerometer, the current GPS
location and time of the event are sent or saved.
This is made possible by options under the
application’s settings, so a user selects where the
data is going to be sent, see Figure 2. The Address
option is the choice of an address, the IP address of
the server where the data can be forwarded via Wi-
Fi or GPRS (General Packet Radio Service)
connection. A File option is used to define the file
that will save all the data generated by the event.
The SMS (Short Message Service) option is to set
the recipient's phone number on which the data is
sent via SMS.
As an alternative to this last option we designed
the possibility of using services such as GPRS for
data transmission to the central operator unit that
will evaluate the data.
The acceleration sensor is generally used in
mobile phones to rotate the image; to go through
viewed images forward or backward, etc. Our
application is using this sensor together with a GPS
unit for entirely different purposes, which allows
SME companies partnering in our project very easily
and effectively to extend their services using
commonly available wireless technologies.
Figure 2: F-SME-GPS application sends SMS with data
from an event triggered by the set limit for a in-built
accelerometer.
2.2 Transferring Data via Bluetooth
The use of commonly available mobile phones for
measuring variables from any technological or
industrial production process is not possible yet,
because we do not have available sensors that would
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allow us such data acquisition - input/output (I/O)
units available for direct connection to a mobile
phone. However, we can use hardware devices with
a Bluetooth (BT) communication standard to
measure the required variables and with this
technology we can connect wirelessly to a mobile
phone, which in this case, serves as a gateway
between the wireless BT and GSM networks, see
Figure 3. This enables our mobile phone to transmit
data from the short range BT network into the long
range GSM network.
Figure 3: Bluetooth network topology (point-to-
multipoint) and connection to a mobile phone.
The module containing multipoint firmware
allows us to simultaneously communicate with up to
7 client stations. Only one station containing the BT
I/O firmware is visible for the mobile phone, which
will be receiving all data from all client stations.
Communication between a server and a module with
BT I/O firmware is provided by the serial interface
RS232. This bridge had to be applied because the
server cannot receive data and send them to a mobile
phone, which is in the position of another client, at
the same time.
As suitable for testing we selected BT modules
OEM 332i SPA-02 from connectBlue™. Their big
advantage is in controlling them by AT Commands
(commands starting with the two letter sequence
AT) and having a serial interface (UART, RS232).
These modules use the EDR (Enhanced Data Rate)
technology, which significantly increases the data
rate of BT, which can approximate the value of 650
kilobytes per second. The modules operate in BT
Class 1 with a maximum output of +20 dBm and the
consumption of a wireless module ranges from 10
mA to 170 mA.
Figure 4: Bluetooth wireless connection modules SPA332i
(with a ceramic antenna).
To use the wireless module for measuring values
and status monitoring of equipment it was necessary
to design a functional unit (electronic mobile unit)
consisting of a charging circuit, increasing voltage
converters, communication units and rechargeable
Li-ION battery, see Figure 5. The battery is
recharged through the charging circuit from an
external source connected to the unit. This made our
module independent from the power network.
Figure 5: Connecting the microprocessor to SPA332
module.
A voltage converter adapts and stabilizes the
voltage from a Li-ION battery of variable sizes
ranging from 3 V, which is a low status, and 4.2 V
corresponding to a fully charged battery, to the
voltage of 5 V. This is needed to power the wireless
module SPA332. The average consumption of a
wireless module in the broadcasting state is about 55
mA, which is, using the battery capacity of 600
mAh, almost 11 hours of operation.
2.3 Using BT Technology in Mobile
Phones
For the mobile phone we programmed an application
WIRELESS COMMUNICATION - As an Innovation Technology for SMEs
197

named F-SME-SPP (FutureSME-Serial Port
Profile), again in Java, enabling the receiving of
inputs from the wireless module. Received data are
of 8 bytes size and each byte has a meaning, such as
the starting byte, packet identification, identification
of the wireless module, etc., the last byte has a check
function. The wireless module connects directly to
the mobile phone and is configured as a server with
enabled visibility for other modules. For the
communication the SPP (Serial Port Profile) is
enabled. After start up the application will try to find
the electronic unit or the wireless module as the
server and will initiate a connection. Figure 6 shows
an electronic mobile unit and a mobile phone
application receiving data from the electronic unit’s
switches.
Figure 6: Connecting electronic mobile unit to the F-SME-
SPP application.
The communication module can also be directly
connected to a microprocessor, which extends the
function of the wireless module with the possibility
of increasing the number of inputs and outputs
(analog, digital, PWM (Pulse Width Modulation),
etc., see Figure 5). The 8-bit microprocessor uses a
wireless module for sending data to a BT network. It
communicates with the wireless module via UART
interface or with a converter (MAX232) with RS232
interface. With this extension we are able to use
wireless technology to measure variables and
monitor conditions of equipment. The designed
electronic unit is portable and can be deployed for
less demanding applications, such as monitoring
water level, temperature, relative moisture, but also
to control light switching or switching on and off
machines, air conditioning, etc.
3 CONCLUSIONS
The described system solutions focus on using
a mobile phone as a device for measuring variables.
In the first phase, we focused on the use of mobile
phones and their available sensors for detecting
unexpected events corresponding to such as a person
falling to the ground. This system design enables us
to send information about the GPS position, the
exceeded value from accelerometer and the time of
the event as data to another mobile phone or
monitoring center (operator’s site) for data
processing. This way it is possible to react very
quickly to unpredictable or even dangerous
situations.
The second system solution uses Bluetooth
technology and expands the use of mobile phone for
the purpose of measuring variables and monitoring
condition of equipment. An electronic unit was
developed enabling communication with other units
in the Bluetooth network allowing the unit to
transmit data to a mobile phone. The mobile phone
serves as an intermediate tool for sending and
further processing data to the GSM network.
Both of these system solutions were designed,
developed and tested along with SME companies
partnering the FutureSME project, however, it
provides a relatively large potential to help other
small and medium-sized companies extend their
services offered along with their products, which
will primarily depend on the interest of the
commercial sector.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research is supported by the CP-IP 214657-2
FutureSME, (Future Industrial Model for SMEs),
EU project of the 7FP in the NMP area.
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Guoliang, Xing., Chenyang, Lu., Ying, Zhang., Qingfeng,
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Configuration for Wireless Communication in Sensor
Networks. Proceedings of the MobiHoc, 2005. 33 pp.
Bluetooth technology [online]. [2009-07-06], available
from www: URL: http://www.bluetooth.com.
OEM SPA332 modules [online]. [2010-11-15], available
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