Programming Sun(TM)SPOTs (Small Programmable Object Technology) in Java(TM)

Willisch, S. (2009) Programming Sun(TM)SPOTs (Small Programmable Object Technology) in Java(TM). [USQ Project]

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Abstract

The purpose of this project was to develop a testbed for a simple wireless sensor network (WSN). In a WSN, a collection of sensor nodes, called motes, have the ability to collect information and send this information to a host computer or other motes. The WSN was developed using a SunTMSPOT Development kit. This development kit contained
the hardware and software to develop a WSN. The applications for the motes were written in Squawk JavaTMVirtual Machine (VM). This variant of JavaTMruns directly on the wire, i.e. without the need for an operating system. To eliminate the need to develop any additional hardware, the eDemoBoard on the SunTMSPOTs was utilised.
The eDemoBoard included sensors, analogue and digital In/Outputs and user inter- faces. Since the development kit only included two SunTMSPOTs, additional virtual motes were added to the WSN. The virtual motes were launched from Solarium. So- larium is a software application which was delivered with the development kit. Virtual and physical SunTMSPOTs were able to communicate with each other.
The WSN was implemented as a Home Automation Application (HAA). It was implemented using two different specialised motes - collector and interface motes. The environmental data was sampled and sent by the collector motes. This data was sent as a broadcast over radio communication. The receivers of the broadcast data were the interface motes and the host. The interface motes forwarded the data to the external systems, i.e. climate control, light control, alarm systems, etc.In addition, the interface motes transmitted the status of the associated external system
to the host. The host acted as a user interface, utilising the incoming data from collector and interface motes to provide relevant information to the occupant of the home.
Six testbeds were dened to verify the accuracy and performance of the WSN. The results from testbeds showed that the selected sensors were deemed to be accurate
enough for a HAA. In addition, from a performance perspective the testbeds proved that the WSN worked well. An unexpected outcome of the testbeds was the discovery
that the host computer became signicantly slower if too many virtual motes were running at the same time.
The high cost of the SunTMSPOT development kit compared to conventional sensors was a limiting factor in deploying a complete WSN using only physical SunTMSPOTs. However, even though the development kit only included two physical SunTMSPOTs it was possible to develop a working WSN. A combination of the physical and virtual SunTMSPOTs provided enough motes for the WSN to cover a small home

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Item Type:	USQ Project
Refereed:	No
Item Status:	Live Archive
Additional Information:	Appendix files have been loaded as a Zip File. Note that some of these files, eg. Matlab files, are unable to be opened in Windows.
Faculty/School / Institute/Centre:	Historic - Faculty of Engineering and Surveying - Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering (Up to 30 Jun 2013)
Date Deposited:	27 Jul 2010 00:25
Last Modified:	06 Sep 2012 07:21
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Java; WSN; wireless sensor network
Fields of Research (2008):	08 Information and Computing Sciences > 0805 Distributed Computing > 080503 Networking and Communications 10 Technology > 1005 Communications Technologies > 100510 Wireless Communications
Fields of Research (2020):	46 INFORMATION AND COMPUTING SCIENCES > 4606 Distributed computing and systems software > 460609 Networking and communications 40 ENGINEERING > 4006 Communications engineering > 400608 Wireless communication systems and technologies (incl. microwave and millimetrewave)
URI:	https://sear.unisq.edu.au/id/eprint/8532

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