ROCkS: Reduced Operating Cost Sensors
ROCkS is an effort to create MERL-owned, standards-compliant, manufacturable, flexible, and low-power sensor network platform.
Background & Objective: The ROCks project has demonstrated the feasibility of low-cost, ad hoc installation of sensor networks within buildings by utilizing standards-compliant wireless communication and multi-year battery life. The modular architecture and easy to manufacture design allow the ROCkS to serve as a flexible platform for sensor network research at MERL and MIT.
Technical Discussion: The ROCkS provide a great deal of flexibility by replacing a platform licensed from MIT. ROCkS, the second-generation sensor box being designed at MERL, improves on the MIT design in terms of power consumption, radio compatibility, and manufacturability. The ROCkS were designed specifically with power consumption in mind. An MSP430 microcontroller was chosen for its flexible clocking modes, which allow the software to enter various `sleep' states and thus conserve power. This low power consumption profile means that the sensors can operate of small batteries for years at a time, and opens up to possibility of investigations into parasitic power models. The ability to install networks of sensors without the need for wires to deliver power represents a significant reduction in the cost of installation for the networks. Over the last year MERL has installed sensors in several locations, including a home where wired installation was not possible. MERL also worked with MIT to install a 150 sensors network that was used for social awareness research. The new boxes employ an IEEE 802.15.4 radio; this is the physical layer typically used with Zigbee. These new radios are similar in concept to the radios used in the MIT boxes, but they are standards-compliant and therefore capable of interoperating with equipment designed by many different vendors. The board layout is designed to be easy to manufacture and assemble, further reducing total cost of deployment. Modular design also means that experiments can leverage the work on the processor and communication systems for a multitude of other sensor modalities.
Future Direction: Currently we are working to deploy approximately 200 sensors at SIGGRAPH Emerging Technology to gather data in crowded environments.
Contacts:
Christopher R. Wren
Darren Leigh
Technology Area: Sensor and Data Systems
Modification Date: November 1, 2007
