An Ultra-Low Power Miniaturised Wireless Mote for Ubiquitous Data Acquisition

Abstract

The advancement of embedded sensing and wireless communication technologies facilitate the possibility of continuous monitoring of our activities and surrounding environment. This leads towards many practical applications such as environmental monitoring, structural health monitoring, wearable and context aware computing which could not be easily done in the past. However, design of wireless sensor nodes and networks for such applications need to follow stringent application requirements to ensure precise measurement, long operating life, reliability under varying thermal and impact conditions, and reasonable communication range. In this paper, a low power miniaturised wireless sensor node (or mote) is designed targeting ubiquitous data acquisition applications. The mote has a modular architecture to meet different application requirements. It is built using ultra low power miniaturised components with a novel power regulation method for achieving long operating life with the overall physical dimension of 30mm x 16mm. It works at sub-1GHz frequency range to allow better obstacle penetration and communication range of up to 1.7km. The mote is planned to be deployed in various applications including earthquake simulation experiments for measuring soil movement and wearable body area networks for vital signs monitoring.