Goal

Our goal for this work is to create and integrate a visualization of data acquired from wireless sensor nets (aka "motes") into our ButterflyNet research browser.

Pilot Deployment

For our first test, we deployed three motes at a sample field site: just outside the Sun field station at the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. After four days, we went out to the field with an OQO and a laptop to wirelessly download the data from the motes. After overcoming some hurdles with the technology, we were finally able to coax the data off the motes. We found that the motes had captured several days worth of data before their batteries failed. The motes (with a fresh set of AAs) are alive and well, and we are continuing our work on integrating this technology into ButterflyNet.

 

This is a MICAz mote. We attach a temperature sensor (not pictured) to the mote, and enclose it in our makeshift enclosures.

Above, Boyko is placing a mote on the ground, and we are testing the range of the 802.15.4 radio.

Line of sight range: about 100 meters. You can see Boyko next to the big oak tree.

Outside the field station, Ron shows how we download data wirelessly using the OQO. Currently, we need to run a USB-to-Serial cable to a base mote, which can speak the 802.15.4 ZigBee protocol. In the future, handheld computers such as the OQO may understand this protocol, and extra mote specific attachments will not be necessary.

We placed motes in party cup enclosures. :)

Here, the OQO is shown with the base mote attachment. We run ButterflyNet on the OQO using the Java 5 VM. ButterflyNet, with its TinyOS and Maté attachments, can plot sensor graphs on the OQO in real time.

At the end of the summer CURIS program, Boyko Kakaradov presented a poster describing his work (click the image to enlarge).