Detection of encroachment on pipeline right-of-way is important for pipeline safety. An effective system can provide on-time warning while reducing the probability of false alarms. There are a number of industry and academic developments to tackle this problem. This thesis is the first to study the use of a wireless sensor network for pipeline right-of-way encroachment detection. In the proposed method, each sensor node in the network is responsible for detecting and transmitting vibration signals caused by encroachment activities to a base station (computer center). The base station monitors and analyzes the signals. If an encroachment activity is detected, the base station will send a warning signal. We describe such a platform with hardware configuration and software controls, and the results demonstrate that the platform is able to report our preliminary experiments in detecting digging activities by a tiller in the natural and automotive noise.
