CollectView is a Contiki OS Java tool that makes possible to program and deploy a Contiki wireless sensor network and collect loads of information without even having to start programming. The CollectView Java application only supports the Tmote sky platform. With the changes and additions made as part of this project (diff), the application could be used with any WSN platform/device supported by Contiki OS and periodically send the sensor values to an internet data storage service. See the Wiki for more info.
This work was part of a final year project about Wireless Sensor Networks on Contiki OS. If you are interested in Contiki OS, please refer to its Website and Wiki.
The main goal of this project was to add support in Contiki OS for this set of attachable sensor boards for the WSN device CM5000, a popular device based on the original open-source TelosB / Tmote Sky platform. The basic outlined workflow involved three steps:
The first step was writing the Contiki OS driver to read the sensor values of the attachable sensor board. Because of Contiki OS great driver interface modular design, this step was pretty much straightforward, as we didn't want to change the ADC12 configuration (sky-sensors.c).
The code for the drivers can be found here. The drivers for the rest of the attachable boards (EM1000, SE1000, CO1000) are almost identical.
Next we had to modify the Contiki OS firmware which is loaded into the WSN nodes to send the right values to the base station CollectView application. It was again very easy to do so, thanks to the good Contiki OS firmware design practices. The firmwares can be found here. The firmwares for the rest of the attachable boards (EM1000, SE1000, CO1000) follow the same pattern.
Last step revolved around modifying the CollectView base station application in order to support the attachable sensor boards. This step was not so easy as the CollectView application was designed for only one platform (Tmote sky) and without enough extensibility in mind.
I extended the application design to support not only the CM5000-attachable sensor boards set, but any Contiki OS supported platform/device. See this Wiki page for a brief guideline on how to use the CollectView application with any WSN platform. If by any chance you find the previous guide useful, you might want to read this too in order to work with the Cooja Network Simulator.
I also added other features such as:
- Data feeding to Cosm (now Xively) and open.sen.se (not sure if it still works)
- Software calibration tool (this is an experimental feature)
- Visualization of last received values for each node on the sensor map
- Load any firmware to motes (placed under
firmwarefolder). - Sensor values charting improvements