Fleck

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The Fleck series ^[1] of nodes have been developed at CSIRO ICT Centre, and have primarily been used for Agriculture and Environmental applications. To date, there have been 3 Flecks developed, each as an update of the previous version.

The Fleck3 shown here improves upon its two predecessors by introducing new and improved radio functions, memory upgrades, better power characteristics and a smaller form factor.

Contents 1 Hardware Specifications 2 Applications 3 Power 4 Software 5 Additional Information 6 Papers 7 References 8 Navigation

Hardware Specifications

Sensing:	Built in temperature and light sensors Flecks may also make use a an expansion board for extra sensing abilities non-limiting to: Inertial sensor with triaxial accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer Strain guage Humidity
I/O:	3 LEDs Screw terminals for: 4 digital I/O, interrupt, counters, PWM gen 2 analog inputs All flecks can be fitted with expansion boards, which are also stackable Expansion Interface 2 x 20 way connectors Robust 4 x hole mounting Datamate connector 2 x RS232
Radios:	Nordic 905 (nRF905) radio transceiver
CPU:	Atmel Atmega 128 processor 512kbyte program flash 4kbyte RAM
Storage:	*1 Megabyte external memory (upgradeable to 4Mb) The Flecks may facilitate more storage by using an expansion board that supports SD/MMC cards

Applications

• Environmental Monitoring
• Water Monitoring
• Agriculture
• Energy monitoring and control

Power

Fleck3 has an improved power supply that supports:

• both rechargeable batteries and super capacitors
• overcharge protection of rechargeable batteries

The power supply operates down to 1.3V, allowing it to scavenge almost all energy from a pair of AA rechargeable batteries. Supplemental to the rechargeable batteries, the Fleck contains solar power charger circuitry allows the Fleck to harness the energy from the sun for a longer life span.

Software

• TinyOS
• Fleck Operating System (FOS) - a cooperative thread-based operating system for the Fleck wireless sensor module

Additional Information

• Wireless Sensor and Actuator Network: two-year progress report
• Keeping check with flecks
• CSIRO ICT Centre - the developers of fleck
• The Sensor Network Museum^tm - Fleck^tm series
• The Powercom Group - The group looking after the commericial release of fleck

Papers

• P. Corke, R. Peterson, and D. Rus. Localization and navigation assisted by cooperating networked sensors and robots. Int. J. Robotics Research, 24(9):771–786, Oct. 2005.
• Z.Butler, P. Corke, R. Peterson, and D. Rus. From robots to animals: Virtual fences for controlling cattle. Int. J. Robotics Research, 25(5-6):485–508, may 2006.
• G.Bishop-Hurley, D. Swain, D. Anderson, and P. Corke. What constitutes a reliable cue to stop animal movement? In 59th Annual Meeting. Soc. Rangelands Management, Feb. 2006.
• Y. Guo, G. Poulton, P. Corke, G. Bishop-Hurley, T. Wark, and D. Swain. Analysis and modelling of live-stock behaviour using wireless sensor devices. In G. J. Bishop-Hurley, editor, Proc of the Spatial Grazing Behaviour Workshop, pages 39–50, J.M. Rendel Laboratory, Rockhampton, jun 2006. CSIRO.

References

1. ↑ http://www.ict.csiro.au/images/Autonomous/FleckCircuitBoard.JPG

Navigation

• Back to Sensors Page
• Back to Body Sensor Networks Page
• Back to Main Page