The 6th International Conference on
Computer Science & Education (ICCSE 2011)
August 3-5, 2011. SuperStar Virgo, Singapore
Studies on Wireless Data -collecting System
of thermodynamic properties of Steam Turbine
Ji Pengwei
Changchun Institute of Technology
Department of Electrical Engineering
Changchun, China
Jipengwei1986@163.com
Abstract—Tests of thermodynamic properties will be needed
before and after overhaul of steam turbine units, in order to
assess the economical conditions of the equipment, and to provide
directions for operation of Electricity Plant and maintenance
tasks in a power plant, to guarantee coal- and electricity-saving,
more generation and supplies to offer indispensable
preconditions under which an economic dispatching solution and
operation of the plant and the system. The existing tests most
adopt wired data collecting manner, require complicated testing
means and longer cycles. This document raises a set of complete
wireless data collecting system based on NRF9E5 Data-collecting
Modules for measurements of thermodynamic properties of a
steam turbine. This system possesses advantages such as multiple
test points, ease of extension, perfect interference resistance.
Index Terms—steam turbine; thermodynamic properties;
wireless data collecting system
I. INTRODUCTION
Thermal power generating unit is an important equipment
in Thermal Power Plant, the test for its performance indicators
plays a vital role in operation and dispatching of a Power Plant,
and offers indispensable preconditions in execution of
economical operation. Most of the existing data collecting
system for the thermal power generating unit is wired and
present such problems as hard wiring, susceptibility of
damages by heat, and also the wiring activities prior to test and
removal after tests always turned out to be time-consuming,
adversely affect the internal layouts and sanitation inside shops.
To solve the above problems, this document offers a design
solution of wireless data collecting system for the
thermodynamic properties of a thermal power generating unit.
II. OERALL SOLUTION
This wireless data collecting system is composed of
wireless data-collecting front panel, software for upper PC,
modules for sending and receiving wireless data. Where the
nodes of sensors can be expanded to realize achievement of
synchronous multiple-point data collection as required. The
architecture of the system is as shown in Figure 1.
978-1-4244-9718-8/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE
ThC 7.2
Cai Changqing
Changchun Institute of Technology
Department of Electrical Engineering
Changchun, China
100542@qq.Com
N th
Fig. 1 Overall architecture of system
The core of this system is NRF9E5 radio frequency chip,
which consists of an internal core of 8051 and wireless
transceiver chip nRF905, equivalent an enhanced single PC
integrated with a wireless transceiver chip.
In the complex electromagnetic environments in Power
Plant, the wireless sector must have abilities of interference
resistance and effective data transmission.
Modular wave-carrying detection device will be able to
effectively avoid collision of data, meanwhile the nRF905 built
in NRF9E5 adopts techniques of Nordic VLSI Shock Burst, to
enable NRF9E5 to perform high speed data transmission.
NRF905 will integrate high speed radio frequency protocol
inside chip, the part connected with micro controller is simple
SPI port, wireless communication is as convenient as SPI
communication. NRF9E5 produced by Nordic VLSI is an
integrated one compared with system using separated controller
and wireless transceiver chips, not only simple peripheral
circuit but also professional hardware design minimize
interferences among digital circuits.
III. DESIGN OF WIRELESS COMMUNICATION SYSTEM
In general, a distance of 100m to 200m of data transmission is
required for a thermal power plant, the wireless data
transmission modules (NRF9E5) will fully satisfy with this
requirement. The equipment sensor nodes and main control
units adopt NRF9E5, in this way a link is created between the
equipment sensor nodes and main control units, the multiple
nodes of the sensor will be able to synchronously transmit data
with the main control unit to form a star network architecture.
The main control unit will be able to select corresponding
nodes for communication to make every node in a controlled
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 ThC 7.2

condition for stable data transmission since each node has a U8 LM117 VCC
L12
unique address. The wireless communication system JP3
Vin Vout
architecture is as shown in Fig. 2. C72 C73 220uH
2 GND C53
1
100uF 100uF 0.1uF
iMac

Header 2

Fig. 3 Power supply circuit

B. Design of Circuit at The Node Collecting Side

1st 256th
2nd
Fig. 2. Wireless communication system architecture
The wireless radio frequency chip, NRF9E5, produced by
Nordic Corporation presents no complex communication
protocol, fully transparent to customers, a free communication
is allowed between products of same kind. Moreover the
NRF9E5 is internally integrated with enhanced 51 Core,
requiring no need of separate PC, that either simplify design of
circuit or improve the interference resistance of system, the
more important thing is that NRF9E5 is cheaper with low cost
advantage.
In a thermal power plant, the temperature of main steam is
an important thermo-technical parameter in the thermodynamic
properties of a steam turbine. A proper sensor must be used for
temperature measurement. The task of a sensor is to transmit
data to the collecting system, through the latter these data will
be sent to a PC for analysis and processing. There is complex
environment and many interference factors inside the thermal
power plant, so the safety and reliability of this system are
prominent issues. The current actions taken to secure reliability
is to select sensors of perfect performance wherever conditions
permit. The interface circuit of sensor is as shown in Figure 4.
VCC R2 330 VCC
A
4

4
LM358M 7.8K
IV. DESIGN OF HARDWARE LM358M B 5 R5 3 R3
REF 7 temp-in R4 1
A. Abbreviations and Acronyms Design of Power Supply to
6 2
System C3 R6 C9
The NRF9E5 wireless system is a rather complex electronic C11 0.01uF 501 Cap
D1
8

system, there is a stronger electromagnetic interferences in its 0.01uF

JP1
D Zener L1
operating environment since this system is used for collection 1
22H
and transmission of data from a thermal power plant. To 2
increase operating stability, reliability, safety and interference Header 2
resistance of the system, the interferences emitted by itself
must be minimized to the most extent in design. The worst
interference when a single-chip PC is applied in the system is Fig 4 Interface circuit of sensor
caused by power supply, therefore, the system power supply
circuit will significantly affect on the system performance. C. Design of circuit at data receiving side
1) Design of display circuit
For the power supply section, as shown in Figure 3, the
operating voltage of the NRF9E5 wireless module is 1.9V- DM12232F is a graph matrix liquid crystal display, mainly
3.6V; LM1117 is a stabilizer with a constant output voltage of composed of driver and row driver and 122×32 full matrix
3.3V. The output capacitor as shown in the figure plays a vital liquid crystal display. It can give display of either graphs or
role in maintaining output voltage stable, it improves stability seven and half Chinese characters (16×16 matrix). The Display
and transient response of the return loop and secure the output Circuit is as shown in figure 5.
voltage accuracy within ±1%, meanwhile LM1117 provides
current limits and over temperature protection and increase
safety and reliability of the system.

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 ThC 7.2

VCC 4
22
CS/
module and node collecting program module. For transmitting
4.7nF
25
21
and receiving program flow chart see Figures 7 and 8.
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
SD
C24 C25 NRF9E5 3 20
SCLK

D V D D _311v 2
5D
33pF 19

3P00
30F
263
272
281
290
VCD
V2D

2
A RE
A IN
A IN
A IN
A IN
18
VDD
24 1 17
VSS
24 1
P01 VSS
23 2
IREF
23 2
P02
22 3 16
22
VSS 3
P03 L-
21 4 15
21
ANT2 4
VDD L+
20 NRF9E5 5 VCC 14
ANT1
20 VSS
5 DB7
19 6 VCC VCC 13
VDD_PA
19 P04
6 DB6

JM 1 2 2 32
18 7 12
18
VSS 7
P05 DB5
17 8 11
VDD
17 P06
8 DB4
E E1 3CSN

C26 5 10
DB3
1 0SI
MISO

33pF 1K 9
X C2
X C1
SCK
V SS
16
15
14
12
11
P097
MO

DB2
8
DB1
7
DB0
16
15
14
13
12
11
10
9

C27 22pF 6
E
Y3 5
R/W
1 2 R6 4
AO
1M 3
16M VO
C28 2
VDD
22pF 1
VSS
JM12232F

Fig. 5 Display circuit of main control unit

2) Series port communication circuit between NRF9E5

and PC

The hardware interface circuit used to realize

communication between NRF9E5 and PC is as shown in Figure
6. Since PC computer series port is RS232C standard interface,
having conflicts with 89C51 Single PC at TTL levels adopted Fig. 7 Flow chart of sending procedure
by both output and input, therefore the transfer from TTL to
RS232 interface by RS232 interface chips of standard
MAX232 by AXIM company, P0.0 of NRF9E5 as shown in
figure is analog sending side, and P0.2 as analog receiving side.
VCC

4.7nF
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32

C15 C16 NRF9E5 2 U2 1uF VCC

D V D D _3 11 v 2
V2 D5 D

33pF 1uF 1 2
3P 20 0
A R3 E0 F
263
272
281
290

C1+ VDD
A IN
A IN
A IN
A IN

C20 3 16
C1- VCC
24 1 1uF 4 C21 J1
VSS
24 P01
1 C2+
23 2 C22 5 1
23
IREF P02
2 C2-
22 3 6
22
VSS P03
3
21 4 11 14 2 11
ANT2
21 VDD
4 T1IN T1OUT
20 NRF9E5 5 10 7 7
20
ANT1 VSS
5 T2IN T2OUT
19 6 VCC 3 10
19
VDD_PA P04
6
18 7 12 13 8
18
VSS P05
7 R1OUT R1IN
17 8 9 8 4
17
VDD P06
8 R2OUT R2IN
C17 9
E E1 3C S N

M 1O0S I
M 1IS1 O

33pF 15 6 5
1 52
1 41
V S1 S6

S C1 K2

GND VEE
P 097
XC
XC

MAX232ACSE C23 D Connector 9

16
15
14
13
12
11
10
9

C18 22pF 1uF

Y2
1 2 R5
1M
16M C19
22pF

Fig. 6 Series port communication circuit

Fig. 8 Flow chart of receiving procedure

V. DESIGN OF SOFTWARE
B. Design of display program for real time data by Upper
After hardware circuit design is completed, the main
functions of the system depends on software for realization. It PC
mainly covers transmitting program, receiving program, This program will use VB6.0 general purpose series port
display program, data collecting program and upper PC control, MSComm, to perform collection and processing of
program. data sent to the port. The VB6.0 MSComm communication
control provides a series of standard communication command
A. Realization of software of functional modules interfaces and permits creation of series port connection to
The control program modules of lower PC chiefly consist other communication equipment (such as Modem). And it also
of wireless communication program module, display program send commands, exchange data to monitor and response to the
errors and events possibly taking place in the course of

882

communication, therefore it can be used full-duplex, event-
drive, effectively applied communication program. In general a
computer always has one or more series ports, they are
respectively Com1, Com2, …, there series ports provide
passages for transmission and communication of data between
peripheral equipment and PC. For collection of images is
shown in Figure 9.
Fig. 9 Collection of images
VI. CONCLUSION
The wireless data collecting system for performance
measurement of thermal power generating unit as designed in
this document solves the problem of restriction of at-site
wiring. the wireless radio frequency single-chip adopted in the
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ThC 7.2
system, NRF9E5, made by Norway Nordic VLSI company, has
perfect interference resistance, the system is featurized
compact, low power consumption, stable and reliable data
transmission and low cost.
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