Lab3: Introduction to Mica2 and Telosb Motes

Objective:

The objective of this lab is to introduce the students to Mica2 and Telosb motes and its usage procedure.

Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to program and run simple programs using Mica2 and Telosb motes.
Students will be acquainted with basic concepts of mica2 and telosb motes.

About motes

The term "motes" refers to a general class of technologies aimed at having small, robust and versatile sensors that are easily deployable over a wide area. Such sensor networks could be distributed in factories to monitor manufacturing conditions, spread over fields to log environmental conditions for agriculture, or mixed into concrete to actively measure building stresses and vibrations. Crossbow refers to its mote/sensor line of products as "Smart Dust", suggesting that one day the technology will reach the nanoscale. [1]

Mica2 motes

These motes sold by Crossbow were originally developed at the University of California Berkeley. The MICA2 motes are based on the ATmega128L AVR microprocessor. The motes run using TinyOS as the operating system. [2] Mica2 mote is one of the most popular and commercially available sensors which are marketed by CrossBow technologies. Read the Mica2 Datasheet to understand Mica 2 Motes better.
http://www.xbow.com/Products/Product_pdf_files/Wireless_pdf/MICA2_Datasheet.pdf
Note: You can find all the mentioned files in this document in the resources folder for the Labs.

Telosb motes

Telosb motes have USB programming capability, an IEEE 802.15.4 compliant, high data rate radio with integrated antenna, a low-power MCU with extended memory and an optional sensor suite[3]. Read the Telosb datasheet to understand the Telosb motes better.
http://www.xbow.com/Products/Product_pdf_files/Wireless_pdf/TelosB_Datasheet.pdf

Exercises (12 Points):

1. What is maximum size of program that can be uploaded to Mica2?
2. What are two of the improvements in Mica2 Motes over its predecessors?
3. Give 2 of the differences between Mica2 and telosb motes.
4. What is the maximum size of program that can be uploaded to Telosb?

Tutorial for mica2 motes

The sensor boards used were the MTS 310 which enables the mote to measure temperature, sound and light in addition to the battery voltage (used to power the Motes).
The base station interface unit, model MIB510/MIB 520 , is RS232 based and serves two main purposes (1) It allows the user to reprogram any mote by plugging the mote directly into the base (2) operates as part of the root node interface giving the PC a data conduit onto the radio based sensor network.
NOTE: The MIB510 interface must be connected to the PC via RS232. To carry out the installation and configuration for Mica2 Motes read the Hardware installation section in the Mica2 Installation tutorial http://hamster.foxhollow.ca/TinyOS/Guide/Mica2-Install-Guide.pdf
Read the tutorial on TinyOS Website for further understanding. http://docs.tinyos.net/index.php/Getting_Started_with_TinyOS#Installing_on_a_mica-family_mote_.28micaz.2C_mica2.2C_mica2dot.29

Tutorial for telosb motes

Read the instructions given in the moteiv tutorial to configure and install
Telosb Motes http://www.ece.osu.edu/~bibyk/ee582/telosMote.pdf
Read the tutorial on TinyOS Website to understand the configuration better
http://docs.tinyos.net/index.php/Getting_Started_with_TinyOS#Installing_on_telos-family_mote_.28telosa.2C_telosb.29

Exercises:

1. Explain the significance of OFF and ON Positions of the Mica2 power switch.
2. PushAndToggle: In this exercise take the skeleton application found in the PushAndToggle directory and implement logic that turns Led0 on whenever the telosb user button is pressed and turns it off whenever the user button is released.

Run and execute the program with Mica2 Motes. (10 points)
Run and execute the program with Telosb Motes. (10 points)

3. Modify the Push and Toggle application by changing the logic so that the led toggles each time rather than simply turning on and o_ when it is pressed and released.
(Hint: will require a local state variable in the module).. As a starting point, take a look at the comments found in the skeleton application as well as the header file in:tinyos-2.x/tos/platforms/telosb/UserButton.h.) [11].

Run and execute the program with Mica2 Motes. (10 points)
Run and execute the program with Telosb Motes. (10 points)

References:-

1. http://computer.howstuffworks.com/mote.htm/printable
2. http://www.xbow.com/Products/productdetails.aspx?sid=174
3. http://www.xbow.com/Products/productdetails.aspx?sid=252
4. http://www.xbow.com/Products/productdetails.aspx?sid=174
5. http://impact.asu.edu/cse494fa05/tinyos-introduction.doc
6.http://hamster.foxhollow.ca/TinyOS/Guide/Mica2-Install-Guide.pdf
7. http://www.mics.ch/SumIntF05/Baghdasaryan.pdf
8. http://www.ece.osu.edu/~bibyk/ee582/telosMote.pdf