Particles

From Capsil Wiki

Particle Computer ^[1] is a platform for rapid prototyping of Ubiquitous and Pervasive Computing environments. The platform consists of an array of hardware components, software applications and libraries for the hardware and a set of development tools.

Within the Particle Computer System there are 4 classes of hardware boards:

• Core boards
• Additional boards
• Interconect boards
• Development boards

Contents 1 Core boards 2 Hardware Specifications 3 Application 4 Power 5 Software 6 Additional Information 7 Papers 8 References 9 Navigation

Core boards

Core Boards contain the basic operating functionality for a Particle needing only two boards to communicate effectively to form a small wireless network. Functionality to these boards may be extended by interfacing to an additional board.

The current and upcoming core boards of the Particles family are as follows:

• Particles (low power RF communication)
• µPart (micro sender-only node)
• cPart (low-power RF)
• zPart (ZigBee)

Hardware Specifications

Board:	Particles	µPart	cPart	zPart
Sensing:	Ball Switch			Ball Switch
I/O:	2 LED, Speaker	1 LED	2 LED	2 LED, Speaker
	Although some boards come with some I/O functionality and sensing abilities. All boards may be enhanced further by interfacing to an additional board to provide many I/O and sensing capabilities.
Radios:	TR1001 Uses the AwareCon (ConCom) protocol	Integrated 869,869.85,(303.825, 914, 433) bands 19.2Kbit data rate ConCom protocol	Integrated 868,(915,315,433 ) bands 76,8kbit or 19.2 kbit data rate ConCom protocol	Chipcon CC2420
CPU:	PIC16F6720 4k RAM 128k Flash 5 MIPS	PIC12F675 64 RAM 1.8k Flash 1 MIPS	CC1010(8051) 2k RAM 32k Flash	PIC16F672x 4k RAM 14k Flash 5 MIPS
Storage:	512k DRAM			512k DRAM

Application

• Ad-Hoc (Sensor) Networks
• Wearable Computers
• Home Automation
• Ambient Intelligence Environments

Power

The Particle computer is battery driven and can attain a lifespan of up to several years.

Software

The particles may be programmed using MPLAB and come with a range of 'ready-to-use' applications. TECO also supply an additional range of development tools and applications which can be found here.

Additional Information

• http://www.snm.ethz.ch/Projects/Particles
• http://www.smart-its.org/
• http://www.teco.edu/index2.html

Papers

Various publications and articles based on the particle computer may be found at: http://particle.teco.edu/publications/index.html

References

1. ↑ http://particle.teco.edu/devices/particle2_29.jpg

Navigation

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