Design OLN optimized low cost wireless sensor networks

This paper describes a design technique and its implementation for OLN (Optimized Low-cost Node) a wireless sensory network node. The basic design considerations include low cost, small foot print factor with a flexibility to modularize the sensory inputs and supports for dual mode wireless communications. The uniqueness of this work include: (1) high level programming language C support for the low cost miniaturized 8-bit CPU development environment; (2) modular RF unit to support ZigBee, and other ASK/FSK RF band, and (3) dual mode sensor input support, e.g., analog and digital sensor input. Detailed steps of the design are given in this paper. Experiments are conducted to verify the design, and they confirmed the design objectives.