Developing Wireless Sensor Nodes for Real-World Applications

This paper describes the development of a wireless sensor node platform, driven by the requirements of two real-world applications. Although there are several commercial, off the shelf platforms available, none was found to be suitable against the needs of the two applications. The platform that has been developed provides a number of advantages over existing systems, the primary one being rapidity of development of both software and the integration new transducer types. Although targeted at the two applications described, the platform makes available a ´multi modal mote´ which mimics the multi-sensor card available with the popular MICA mote, but offers a better performance.