Wireless sensor networks client: Dr. Camden

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Wireless sensor networksclient Dr. Camden

• Kyle Cruz
• Billy York

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What is a mote?

• A mote is a small wireless hardware platform,
  similar to a computer.
• It has its own processor, flash memory, sram, and
  serial flash memory.

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WSNs and Motes

• Many motes together make a Wireless Sensor
  Network (WSN)
• In WSNs motes form a network by communicating,
  listening and transmitting information to and
  from each other and a base station mote.
• A mote can be programmed to sense light,
  temperature, magnetism, acceleration, and sound
  with an attached sensor board.

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Motes

• There are many different type of motes
• The motes used were Mica2s.
• Mica2 motes are the fifth generation of motes
  made by University of California, Berkley and
  Intel, released in 2003.
• They have a 7mhz processor, 128kb programmable
  flash memory, 4kb Static RAM for storing data and
  variables.

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Programming the Motes

• There are two ways to program motes
• The more common way is to attach the mote to a
  programming board which is connected via ethernet
  cable or serial port.
• The second way is Over The Air Programming(OTAP).
  To OTAP a mote, OTAP must be enabled when
  programming an attached mote with a seperate
  program.

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Project Goals

• Deploy a WSN using Mica2 motes.
• Motes in the WSN must be programmable over the
  air(OTAP). Meaning a user can select a mote to
  program and program it while it is deployed.
• Program motes to send less often.
• Program motes to send less information.

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Tools Provided and used.

• Mote-View
• MoteConfig
• Programmers Notepad
• Lantronix Device Installer
• Xserve
• PostgreSQL

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Mote-View

• Graphical User Interface for WSNs
• Provides visualization and analysis of sensor
  data
• Provides database management

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Other Tools

• MoteConfig is a tool to program the motes. It
  provides the ability to program motes over the
  air and motes that are attached to the
  programming board.
• Programmers Notepad a robust IDE for many
  languages, however NesC for TinyOS is what is
  used to program motes.

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Other Tools cont.

• Lantronix Device Installer is a program to
  manually assign IP addresses to the MIB600
  ethernet programming boards.
• Xserve is a data logging utility that posts to
  a PostgreSQL database.
• PostgreSQL An SQL database. Can be stored
  locally or over a LAN or online.

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Problems, Problems, and more

• Long learning curve.
• Hardware is very unreliable.
• Software is very unreliable.
• Documentation provided is bad.

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Problems, Problems.

• NesC proficiency is needed to understand what the
  code does
• Learn the ins-and-outs of all aforementioned
  tools.
• Overcoming software and hardware errors with no
  troubleshooting documentation.

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Problems, Problems.. Hardware

• The hardware is not consistent
• - The programming boards and motes act
  differently between different hardware setups.
• - Power supplies for motes are inconsistent at
  best

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Problems, Problems.. Software

• Mote-View would have random software errors
• MoteConfig would cause memory leak.
• Xsniffer never worked.
• Device Installer was a whole version behind the
  newest available for download
• OTAP would not work until Mote-View was updated
  to 1.4 revision B.

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Problems, Problems.. Documentation

• Tutorials were not in-depth enough, and lacked
  detail
• User manuals were more tutorials
• No troubleshooting in user manuals
• No established community information provided.

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Problems, Problems.. Quirks

• The magical router, a spare D-link router we
  had, worked. It worked regardless of setup or
  system.
• OTAPing never worked when two ore more
  programming boards are connected to the same
  network
• MoteConfig does not clear memory.

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Goals Achieved

• Deploy a WSN using Mica2 motes.
• Motes in the WSN must be programmable over the
  air(OTAP).
• Program motes to send less often.
• Program motes to send less information.
• All achieved.

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Demo QA

• A quick demo
• Then QA