This IAB we have prepared a half-day tech-transfer workshop for industrial members teaching background, fundamentals, advantages and limitations associated with standards-based low-power sensor networks. Open standards are important because they allow technologies to gain traction and industries to blossom. Open-source reference implementations take things one step further. Because standard protocols invariably allow optional configurations, a reference implementation gives people a concrete example of how to get started. The proposed IEEE802.15.4e standard prescribes time synchronization and channel hopping, two features which form a more reliable foundation for upper- layer network enhancements. In addition, the IETF 6LoWPAN standard specifies how to connect sensor networks to the Internet, and the proposed RPL standard allows messages to reliably multi-hop their way through a mesh. In this workshop, attendees will receive a take-home kit of motes based on a wireless sensor board which we have dubbed the Guidance & Inertial Navigation Assistant (GINA). The kit includes the GINA mote plus its surrounding eco-system (a set of four boards in total), enabling Industrial Members to experiment with the new open-source reference implementation of the protocols with their own sensors and in their own laboratories when they return to their companies after the workshop.
Project end date: 02/01/11