A mote is a small wireless hardware platform, similar to a computer.

It has its own processor, flash memory, sram, and serial flash memory.

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.

There are many different type of motes The motes used were Mica2’s. 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.

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.

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.

Mote-View MoteConfig Programmers Notepad Lantronix Device Installer Xserve PostgreSQL

Graphical User Interface for WSNs Provides visualization and analysis of

sensor data Provides database management

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.

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.

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

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.

The hardware is not consistent - The programming boards and

motes act differently between different hardware setups.

- Power supplies for motes are inconsistent at best

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.

Tutorials were not in-depth enough, and lacked detail

User manuals were more tutorials No troubleshooting in user manuals No established community information

provided.

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.

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.

A quick demo Then Q&A