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Wireless sensor networks support IP traffic

6LoWPAN support on IEEE802.15.4 radio - IP with long battery life

Jennic has introduced a single-chip implementation for 6LoWPAN low-power wireless IP, routing IP traffic over low-power wireless networks. Jennic supplies solutions in both ZigBee and generic IEEE 802.15.4 wireless areas; this introduction is part of the latter. The company says that in many cases, in industrial and commercial-building networks, the extended-mesh-network (as proposed in ZigBee) may not be the ideal implementation. A more realistic structure to install wireless sensor networks in large buildings is local cluster of up to 50 to 70 nodes, connected wirelessly, with the clusters connected to a wired backbone. Clusters operate on a self-healing tree-type structure. This, Jennic says, fits well with the IP model; you as the user do not need to know if any connection is wired or wireless – yo simply address it with the standard tools of the IP environment. Jennic has a networking stack that runs on its JN5139 32-bit wireless microcontroller and wireless modules. The microcontroller has 192 kBytes of ROM and 96 kBytes of RAM for the IEEE802.15.4 MAC; 6LoWPAN and JenNet stacks; and application software. It also integrates UARTs, SPI and 2-wire serial (I2C) interfaces, general purpose I/O (GPIO), timers, a
12-bit ADC, DAC and comparators, whilst maintaining power consumption below 5uA in low-power sleep mode. The integrated 2.4GHz, IEEE802.15.4-based transceiver supports a 100dB link for communication over 30-50m distances indoors as well as secure 128-bit AES encryption, with sufficient resources to run application software. The power consumption of 6LoWPAN is a fraction of that of Wi-Fi, meaning that products such as heating controls, security sensors, patient monitoring equipment, process controllers and sensors, can be IP-enabled with multi-year battery life expectancy.