A Highly Reliable Platform with a Serpentine Antenna for IEEE 802.15.4 over a Wireless Sensor Network

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are a developing area in the modern health-care service industry. Traditional circuit layout rules generally cannot be used for the stringent requirements of such systems due to unstable signals and non-ideal conditions. We propose and have implemented a hardware platform to eliminate the poor layout rules. During the design phase, our proposed design procedure can help analyze the signal propagation conditions of the printed circuit board (PCB) design by simulating board-level signal integrity. Moreover, this procedure leads to better layout rule parameters. A designer can effectively build a reliable hardware platform for the design of microcontroller unit schematics with superior system performance using our proposed layout rules. Such layout technologies are the major goal of original design manufacturers in their overall PCB designs. Moreover, since the PCB serpentine antenna has the advantages of low cost, light weight, simple construction, and easy integration, we used formulas and simulation software tools to analyze its characteristics and then constructed a prototype with better performance for IEEE 802.15.4 wireless antenna applications. Our experiments showed that the transmission distance can be greater than 18 m without any loss of data over a WSN when using this antenna. Key-Words: Wireless sensor network, ZigBee, IEEE 802.15.4, Signal integrity, Layout rules, Serpentine antenna.