ConnecTIng Wirelessly

Wireless smoke alarm design using SimpleLink™ Sub-1 GHz MCUs

Neeketh Sheth — Wed, 26 Jul 2017 13:00:00 GMT

Smoke alarms are critical devices used universally to help detect fires and save lives. They sense smoke and assist in building evacuations using sirens. Traditionally, smoke alarms are wired systems; however, wireless connected smoke alarms are becoming more common and wireless smoke alarms simplify installation/maintenance and reduce cost compared to wired smoke alarms. However, the wireless smoke alarm design introduces challenges of power consumption, wireless networking for whole building coverage, and security due to the vulnerability of connected networks. By using TI’s SimpleLink™ Sub-1 GHz CC1310 and dual-band CC1350 wireless microcontrollers (MCU’s), you can address these design challenges to easily create a wireless smoke alarm design.

Common system requirements

When designing a wireless smoke alarm one of the most common system requirements is a long battery life. The MCU shutdown and standby currents are low (0.185µA/0.7µA respectively) and the CC13xx devices have a low MIPS/MHz (51µA/MHz) current consumption, making computation and housekeeping activities efficient and stabilized. Finally, the RX mode (5.4mA) and TX mode (13.4mA @10dbm) along with fast transition times reduces the overall current consumption. Moreover, the CC1310 and CC1350 wireless MCUs contain a sensor controller, a proprietary MCU core that allows the rest of the system to sleep while waiting for an external event trigger. This enables the wireless smoke alarm to run for at least 10 years on a coin cell battery. Figure 1 below indicates the profile of a typical panel-connected fire alarm system.

Figure 1: Illustrated power profile for a wireless smoke alarm

Another requirement for a smoke alarm system is to have secure and robust transmissions. Therefore, it is important to have a complete software stack with added security features to help protect the transmission. For example, the SimpleLink Sub-1 GHz wireless MCUs are supported by the CC13x0 software development kit (SDK) which contains the star networking TI 15.4-Stack based on the 802.15.4g standard and includes both frequency hopping and added security features. The TI 15.4-Stack uses an advanced CSMA/CA networking algorithm, implementing a “listen before talk” mechanism to minimize the amount of collisions, resulting in a robust network. Furthermore, Sub-1 GHz frequency bands propagate well in the air, through walls, and around corners allowing for full coverage of large buildings and office spaces.

Additionally, TI’s dual-band CC1350 device supports both Sub-1 GHz and Bluetooth® low energy in a single chip which allows for a scalable system. The addition of Bluetooth low energy to safety systems, particularly smoke alarms, enhances the user experience by adding a native interface to the smoke alarm units. Using a smartphone application, users can receive status updates, transmit network properties, and push software updates over a Bluetooth low energy connection. Bluetooth low energy beacons also allow smoke alarms to transmit broadcast messages to a nearby smartphone.

Designing a system with a SimpleLink Sub-1 GHz wireless MCU

When designing a wireless smoke alarm, users can connect the smoke sensor to the MCU’s analog-to-digital converter (ADC) through an amplifier that converts current to voltage, or it can be connected to a comparator and trigger the MCU using an interrupt. The CC1310/CC1350 devices have a large number of general-purpose input/output (GPIO), inter-integrated circuit (I2C), universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART), serial peripheral interface (SPI) and other interfaces that may be required. By choosing a wireless MCU versus an MCU plus a radio-frequency (RF) transceiver chip combination, the system can achieve lower power size, and lower cost allowing for a quicker time to market. Figure 2 shows the block diagram of a typical smoke alarm system.

Figure 2: Photoelectric smoke alarm system block diagram

Cloud connectivity

Security and safety systems can also benefit from cloud connectivity because the cloud gives users the ability to monitor and control systems remotely. However, Sub-1 GHz requires a gateway in order to connect to the internet, which buffers and translates messages from the Sub-1 GHz network into Ethernet packets and communicates with the cloud over Ethernet or Wi-Fi®. TI’s Sub-1 GHz Sensor to Cloud Industrial IoT Gateway Reference Design provides an end-to-end system based on cloud connectivity to send and receive sensor data over a long-range Sub-1 GHz network (Figure 3). Some features included in the reference design are advanced encryption standard (AES)-128, message integrity codes, frequency hopping, and cloud integration.

Figure 3: Sensor to Cloud general block diagram

Conclusion

Wireless smoke alarms introduce new design challenges including long-range coverage, good battery life, security, robustness, and scalability. SimpleLink Sub-1 GHz CC1310 and dual-band CC1350 wireless MCUs address these design problems by offering whole-building coverage, 10-year operation on a coin cell battery, complete software with built-in security, and an end-to-end gateway solution. This makes designing a wireless smoke alarm easier and enables developers to have lower costs and a quicker time to market than wired smoke alarm designs.

Additional resources

Learn more about wireless smoke alarms in the application report, “Wireless Smoke Alarms with Sub-1 GHz SimpleLink™ Wireless MCU.”
Download these other reference designs:
- Energy Harvesting Ambient Light and Environment Sensor Node for Sub-1GHz Networks Reference Design.
- Humidity and Temperature Sensor Node for Sub-1 GHz Star Networks Enabling 10+ Year Coin Cell Battery Life.
Read the blog post, “How to build a fully managed and scalable long-range network with low-power nodes.”
Check out the white paper, “Bringing wireless scalability to intelligent sensing applications.”

Designing a building security system with the Sub-1 GHz sensor-to-cloud reference design

Nrs522 — Wed, 19 Jul 2017 13:30:00 GMT

Building security systems come in many system topologies, ranging from a simple alarm system to a complicated network of sensors that all report to a main security panel acting as a hub. These systems are either wired or wireless based on their deployment, and when wireless leverage many different types of connectivity to achieve their specific application. Some applications (like security cameras) use Wi-Fi® for a native connection to the cloud, while some smart applications (like door locks) use Bluetooth® low energy in order to connect to phones and tablets. Security systems based on sensor networks, such as smoke detectors, motion detectors, door/window sensors, and glass-break detectors, can benefit from using Sub-1 GHz networks.

Sub-1 GHz technology offers many advantages when designing a building security system, including achieving much longer range and better wall penetration than 2.4 GHz technology. This enables whole building coverage without the need for repeaters and without having to use a complicated mesh network topology. Sub-1 GHz is also very low power, enabling remote sensors to operate for 10 years on a coin-cell battery. This benefit offers system design flexibility, eliminating the need to route wires inside ceilings and walls.

One essential point when designing building security systems is that the communication must be reliable. Sub-1 GHz systems offer high robustness by taking advantage of the Sub-1 GHz frequency band, which is less crowded than other popular bands.

While it is clear that Sub-1 GHz has many key advantages for building security design, often security systems and sensors must have a cloud connection or a smart device interface requiring Wi-Fi and Bluetooth low energy. However, it is very complicated to design a system that sends and receives sensor data over a Sub-1 GHz star network, connects to the cloud, and provides a smart device interface. Thanks to the dual-band capabilities and flexible radio features of the CC1350 wireless microcontroller (MCU) and the Sub-1 GHz Sensor to Cloud solution, you can easily develop products that seamlessly connect to both smart devices and the cloud while still leveraging the benefits of Sub-1 GHz technology.

The Sub-1 GHz sensor-to-cloud solution provides cloud connectivity for sending and receiving sensor data over a long-range Sub-1 GHz star network. The design is based off of the ultra-low power SimpleLink™ CC1310 Sub-1 GHz wireless MCU and the SimpleLink CC1350 dual-band wireless MCU enabling Sub-1 GHz plus Bluetooth low energy. The reference design pre-integrates the TI 15.4-Stack (part of the SimpleLink CC13x0 software development kit), a complete star networking solution. Additionally, the devices and tools are part of TI’s SimpleLink MCU platform, providing a unified software experience across TI’s low-power wired and wireless MCUs. Figure 1 is a high-level system diagram of the reference design.

Figure 1: Sub-1 GHz sensor-to-cloud system diagram

The Sub-1 GHz sensor-to-cloud reference design scales to many different applications. For instance, imagine designing a building security system including smoke detectors, motion detectors, door & window sensors, and glass-break detectors covering a whole building, and all communicating with a centralized security panel. The system design requires that consumers view sensor data on the web or a smart device. The solution can help achieve this use case, while supporting a fast time to market and being flexible enough to enable various solution architectures.

Figure 2: Home security system example

As Figure 2 shows, the peripheral sensors (smoke detector, motion detector, door/window sensors and glass-break detectors) all talk to the central security panel over a Sub-1 GHz star network. The security system leverages the long range and wall penetration of Sub-1 GHz to cover the whole building. Additionally, you can place sensors that don’t have access to AC power, like the door and window sensors, remotely; they can run for 10 years on a coin-cell battery. Using the CC13150 dual-band MCU, the smoke detector can connect over Bluetooth low energy to a phone or tablet and send users alerts on their smart device.

These alerts can report battery life or any danger detected, while the smoke detectors communicate to the main security panel over the Sub-1 GHz network. The security panel can collect data from all of the sensors and, using Wi-Fi, connect to the cloud to report to the security company or enable visualization of the data on the web. Users can also update the system firmware by connecting to the panel with Bluetooth low energy or receiving the updates from the cloud. The panel can then push those updates out to the peripherals and update the firmware of each node over the Sub-1 GHz network.

This building security system example is just one use case enabled by TI’s sensor to cloud solution. The gateway architecture is flexible, enabling interfaces to multiple cloud providers. The reference design also comes with two gateway options: one based off SimpleLink Wi-Fi technology running on TI-RTOS and one based off a Linux environment. Finally, the design is based on proven hardware and software from the SimpleLink MCU platform, which will shorten development time and enable quick time to market. Take advantage of the solution and start your design today.

Additional resources

Download the SimpleLink™ Sub-1 GHz Sensor to Cloud Gateway Reference Design for TI-RTOS Systems.
Learn more about:

The importance of frequency hopping

Scott Allen49 — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 14:24:43 GMT

Are you a fan of those 1940s black-and-white movies where a damsel in distress gets rescued by a rough-and-ready private eye? If so, then you’ve probably seen actress Hedy Lamarr. In real life, Hedy was no damsel in distress. She was one of the primary inventors of technology now seen in Wi-Fi®, Bluetooth® and code-division multiple access (CDMA).

The technology Hedy Lamarr helped invent is frequency-hopping spread-spectrum (FHSS) radio technology. FHSS is a wireless technology that spreads signals over rapidly changing frequencies. Each available frequency band is divided into subfrequencies. Signals rapidly change, or “hop,” among these subfrequency bands in a pre-determined order.

Used in global industrial applications for over 60 years, 900MHz FHSS radios equipped with TI’s chipsets like the SimpleLink™ Sub-1 GHz CC1310 wireless microcontroller (MCU) now have the ability to host process-automation apps for the intelligent command and control of remote sensors and devices.

Without having to leverage expensive Wi-Fi bandwidth, lay fiber or employ cost-prohibitive cellular, companies can now take advantage of proven low-power FHSS technology to automate processes at the network edge.

The proliferation of smart sensors and high-bandwidth devices makes low-power FHSS technology a viable and cybersecure wireless data option for oil and gas, unmanned systems (like unmanned aerial vehicles [UAVs] and robots) and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) wireless integration. Because innovators like TI have developed such powerful chips, FHSS is no longer restricted to pure telemetry or input/output (I/O).

Indeed, FHSS increasingly supports voice and video, and can scale to form self-healing mesh networks. Moreover, FHSS transmits data over much longer distances than Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, LoRa or zigbee – up to 60 miles in some cases.

Because FHSS is a wireless technology that spreads its signal over rapidly hopping radio frequencies, it is highly resistant to interference and is difficult to intercept. Interference at a specific frequency only affects the transmission during that extremely short interval, making FHSS inherently cybersecure.

By employing intelligent TI-based FHSS technology, organizations can take advantage of real-world fog computing and intelligent edge communication devices that are cybersecure and resilient. When deployed as process-automation nodes, these devices (pictured in Figure 1) can make decisions and take action at the access level (or at the sensor or device). Indeed, not only is FHSS a reliable and robust option for Internet of Things (IoT) networks, it is also a low capex and opex solution that can work for years without maintenance.

Figure 1: FreeWave’s newest 900 MHz, FHSS data radio, the Z9-P. Offers programmability for true edge intelligence. Also, available in ruggedized enclosure.

Contact FreeWave to learn more about FHSS technology and order a couple of TI-powered radios that you can program (in Python, Node-RED and Node.js) for real-world fog and edge applications.

Also, find out more information about the CC1310 wireless MCU and other products within the SimpleLink MCU platform.

Halo Smart Labs designs a smart smoke alarm using TI’s SimpleLink™ Wi-Fi® and Xively IoT platform

Nick Lethaby — Wed, 14 Jun 2017 12:30:00 GMT

Smoke alarm technology has changed little, if at all, in the past 30 years – until the Internet of Things (IoT) made connectivity possible. Realizing that smoke detectors were a natural mechanism to deliver alerts for tornadoes or other life-threatening severe weather, Halo Smart Labs used TI technology to implement its internet-enabled Halo® and Halo+ smoke detectors, which offer many new features compared to traditional smoke detectors.

Their design goals included:

Connecting to the internet.
Enabling end users to control their smoke alarms remotely through a smartphone or voice service such as Amazon Alexa.
Adding carbon monoxide detection, accent lighting and alerts for approaching severe weather conditions.
Improving basic smoke alarm functionality by providing more precise alerts.
Eliminating false alarms, which have been a traditional weakness in smoke detectors.

Halo designed custom multisensor fire-detection logic to identify real fires faster and reduce false alarms. They also augmented the basic alarm sound system to give users greater clarity as to the precise source and nature of the threat. Their smoke detectors provide voice alerts describing the threat and use IoT connectivity to send messages to smartphones or other mobile devices. The detectors can provide voice and message alerts that specify the exact location of the alarm in a home. Halo also added a remote “hush” capability to the smartphone interface to enable users to handle any false alarms quickly.

How Halo Smart Labs used TI SimpleLink Wi-Fi in its design

When Halo Smart Labs entered the search for a Wi-Fi-enabled microcontroller (MCU) solution, their requirements included low power consumption, simple Wi-Fi provisioning and sufficient peripheral input/output (I/O) ports to connect the additional logic required to implement the full feature set (Figure 1).

The SimpleLink™ Wi-Fi® low-power deep-sleep mode enables the Halo and Halo+ smoke alarms to operate for up to 30 days on battery alone, while the SimpleLink SmartConfig capability enables customers to quickly and easily add any device to their home network.

Halo used the SimpleLink Wi-Fi’s high-speed analog-to-digital converter module to measure multiple sensors and voltages in their custom multisensor fire-detection technology. To implement natural voice alerts about emergencies, Halo stored the voice messages in the SimpleLink file system and streamed out the alerts to a speaker using a combination of Ultra Direct Memory Access (UDMA) and I²S communications. The SimpleLink Wi-Fi I²C ports connect the weather radio and sensors such as temperature and barometric pressure. To support zigbee®-based smart home platforms such as Samsung SmartThings or Iris by Lowe’s‎, Halo used the Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) port to connect a zigbee network co-processor. The pulse-width modulation (PWM) and general-purpose I/O (GPIO) drive the accent lighting, smoke and carbon monoxide detection LEDs and the alarm itself, while providing tamper detection.

In addition to their need to support these new product features, other key factors in Halo’s decision to base their design on SimpleLink Wi-Fi were TI’s ability to provide excellent engineering support and its product roadmap, especially its support of smart home ecosystems. Halo Smart Labs is already using the recently released CC3220 device and SimpleLink software development kit (SDK) in new designs. SimpleLink Wi-Fi is certified for use in Apple HomeKit devices and Halo is currently designing HomeKit-compatible offerings to add to its product line.

In addition to using SimpleLink Wi-Fi, Halo’s design takes advantage of TI’s broad device portfolio, which also includes the CD4051BPWR analog multiplexer/demultiplexer, TLV1117LV33DCYR voltage regulator, and LMV793MA/NOPB and LMC6061IMX/NOPB operational amplifiers.

The Xively IoT platform

A second key technology component of the Halo connected smoke detector was the Xively IoT platform, which enables companies to connect devices, structure product data to make it actionable, and integrate data with other business ecosystems.

Halo required that its connected smoke alarm and associated IoT service offer very high reliability to ensure that alerts on life-threatening situations would always get through. Halo also needed the IoT platform to scale to hundreds of thousands of users and be available for the entire life of the smoke detector. Given the investment and time that would be required to build and maintain an IoT service from scratch, Halo decided to base their design on the Xively IoT platform. This platform had been independently tested to provide very high availability and previously used in IoT applications with large numbers of users.

Figure 2: The Xively IoT platform enables control of Halo and Halo+ smoke detectors through mobile devices or smart home ecosystems while scaling to manage hundreds of thousands or millions of customers easily.

Xively runs and maintains the IoT application for Halo in the cloud, enabling Halo to concentrate on the smoke detector design and implementation. Halo also took advantage of Xively’s professional services team to assist in developing key components of their connected product.

Xively’s IoT platform enabled Halo to build in the remote hush and a remote-controlled accent light features, and integrate third-party data for weather warnings. Halo used the platform’s pre-existing integration with existing smart home platforms such as Amazon Alexa and Samsung SmartThings to design in connectivity to smart home ecosystems (figure 2).

Designing an IoT application requires developers to work with more vendors than a traditional embedded design. TI collaborates with proven IoT platform providers like Xively to ensure customers like Halo Smart Labs can successfully deliver ground-breaking products. Visit here for more information on the Halo and Halo+ smoke detectors. To start developing your IoT own project with the CC3220 LaunchPad, use these recipes to connect to the Xively IoT platform.

Wireless technologies that are transforming medical care

Jim Kleidon — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 19:43:21 GMT

Improving patient outcomes, meeting stringent compliance mandates and reducing costs are key health care provider requirements. To meet these objectives, the medical industry is accelerating the integration of radio frequency (RF) mobile devices into all facets of their workflow, from implantable devices, to mobile diagnostic equipment, to even facility automation that makes hospitals “smart”. In order to meet this challenge, medical device manufacturers are looking to offer solutions that can be implemented more quickly, provide reliable connectivity and deliver tight data security.

According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the use of RF wireless technology can translate into significant advances in health care. Wireless medical devices deliver a wide range of benefits that include increasing patient mobility, giving staff the ability to remotely program, and enabling physicians to remotely monitor patient data regardless of the location of the patient or the physician.

WiLink™ 8 and customized device drivers from Intelligraphics

Intelligraphics recently announced a collaboration with Ivenix Inc. on an infusion pump platform built on TI’s WiLink™ 8 WL1837MOD chipset. Designed with patient safety as a top priority, the Ivenix solution uses technologies similar to a smartphone and is designed to manage patient-specific intravenous (IV) information (see Figure 1, below). The goal of this platform is to improve health care compliance, data flexibility and remote connectivity.

As part of the TI WiLink™ 8 high-performance Wi-Fi® plus Bluetooth®/Bluetooth low energy portfolio, the WL1837MOD is an industrial-grade Wi-Fi dual-band, 2.4/5GHz Bluetooth and Bluetooth low energy module with two antennas. It supports multiple hardware, software and operating systems, providing the flexibility, reliability and throughput that medical device manufacturers are looking for.

Be sure to consider the following when developing wireless medical devices:

Your preferred wireless technology, including 802.11, Bluetooth and near-field communication (NFC).
Quality of service (QoS) and data throughput.
Coexistence and compatibility with existing information technology (IT) infrastructure.
Enterprise-level security and data-protection compliance.
Electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) with other medical devices.

Enterprise-level security to help protect patients and assets

Manufacturers of medical devices that potentially could be affected by cybersecurity threats should be extremely vigilant. In 2014, the FDA published a document explaining how medical device manufacturers should proactively design-in security features that help insulate the device from cybersecurity threats, at all levels of the application stack.

Intelligraphics provides enterprise-grade security at the point where the hardware and software interact with the device driver and firmware. Security solutions include Extensible Authentication Protocol, Transport Layer Security (EAP-TLS) as a feature within the Intelligraphics Enterprise Security suite. EAP-TLS is one of the best-supported methods used by enterprise security vendors. The biggest strength of EAP-TLS is its leverage of the public key infrastructure (PKI), or certificates, which provide a secure and well-known way to authenticate and authorize users for network access.

Wi-Fi-enabled medical devices such as X-ray, sonography, insulin meters and other assets can benefit from optimized 802.11 and Bluetooth solutions built on the TI WiLink™ 8 platform to meet stringent requirements. The development team at Intelligraphics provides device driver, firmware and RF optimization expertise to help wireless medical device manufacturers deliver performance, Wi-Fi reliability and IT coexistence from their products.

Additional resources

Learn more about Intelligraphics products for TI chipsets.
Visit the Ivenix website.
Learn more about TI’s WiLink 8 solutions.

Making a smarter door lock with the SimpleLink™ MSP432™ microcontroller

Stefan Schauer — Wed, 31 May 2017 13:00:00 GMT

Adding an electronic door lock to your front door can provide many features and benefits. For example:

Opening the door with a keypad could be very convenient if you are inadvertently locked outside.
You can forego bringing your keys when going out for a run.
You can give access to others, either temporarily or with time limits and restrictions.
Your children can open the door when returning from school without having to be responsible for a key.

While electronic door locks should work reliably, they are susceptible to many environmental influences. Moisture, dirt, rain drops and ultraviolet (UV) light from the sun can erode materials over time. In addition, as an Internet of Things (IoT) device, the lock is vulnerable to cyberattacks, making protected wireless communication and a tamper-proof front panel and keypad mandatory features. These are only some of the challenges that a door lock has to resolve. In the block diagram in figure 1, the important components of the physical lock are shown: keypad, wireless connection, display and control.

Figure 1: Door lock block diagram

Low-power host

Extending battery life is a critical objective when designing a door lock, which is predominantly in idle mode. TI’s SimpleLink™ MSP432™ microcontroller (MCU) can help maximize energy savings because it consumes just 660nA in idle mode. When an event arises, the MSP432 MCU can wake up quickly, offering the ideal performance-to-energy-consumption ratio with high computational bandwidth.

The MCU can also handle additional tasks including:

Control radio communications via Bluetooth® low energy or Wi-Fi®.
Control and get data from the keypad with TI’s CapTIvate™ touch technology (on the MSP430FR2633 MCU).
Control the relay or motor of the lock/unlock mechanism.
Add sensing upon lock manipulation with input/outputs (I/Os).
Get integrated into a burglar alarm system.
Remotely open the door through an internet connection to the home network even when far away from home.

The integrated analog-to-digital converter (ADC) on the MSP432 MCU has up to 16 bits of resolution, offering a pathway to add premium features such as:

Environmental sensor measurements (humidity, temperature, air pressure).
Motor control and jamming protection.
Motion detection and daylight sensing to control lights at the front door.

A building protection application could become a target for a cyberattack or manipulation. The MSP432 MCU’s implemented security features enable a very high level of security to:

Securely store data like encryption and authentication keys for the keypad or network access.
Enable the user to add or remove keys or restrict access rights by time.
Conduct secure wireless over-the-air firmware updates.

Wireless access

With the TI SimpleLink™ MSP432™ software development kit (SDK), you can add wireless communication features without much effort. The SimpleLink MSP432 SDK plug-ins provide an easy way to add Bluetooth low energy connectivity to a new or existing MSP432 MCU-based application. For example, using a host MCU and adding Bluetooth low energy through a network processor provides extended functionality and unparalleled system design flexibility, which are critical for industrial applications. Figure 2 shows the clear software structure of the SDK and the easy access from the application layer.2

Additionally, many residential door locks can leverage Apple’s HomeKit technology so that consumers can control their door locks through the Home app on an iOS-based device. TI offers a robust Bluetooth low energy HomeKit solution using the MSP432 MCU for designers to create highly differentiated HomeKit accessories.

Figure 2: SDK components and layers

The keypad

It’s possible to design a capacitive touch technology-based keypad so that it’s both stylish and well-isolated against environmental influences. It’s very easy to avoid issues, like mechanical malfunction of buttons on the keypad, and to protect the keypad against dirt and water. A flat panel without any gaps or mechanical moving parts can be encapsulated with much less effort and is only required at the fixed borders of the panel.

Maintaining performance in the presence of water drops or heavy moisture on the panel requires a technology sensitive enough to detect the differences between water and human fingers; otherwise, the panel may misinterpret actual key presses or ignore them completely. Figure 3 illustrates the principle of a capacitive touch button. The CapTIvate touch module implemented in the MSP430FR2xxx device provides a sensing system that can detect such situations and react and filter for them.

Figure 3: Capacitive touch principle

Door lock keypads must be able to tolerate moisture and operate with touch detection in the presence of steam, mist or spray.

To dive deeper into this door lock application and quickly get started, see the additional resources below.

Check out the Access Control Panel with Bluetooth® low energy and Capacitive Touch reference design.
Watch the video, “Access Control Panel featuring Bluetooth® low energy and Capacitive Touch.”
Enhance your door lock with voice activation.
Download the “CapTIvate Technology Guide.”

Bringing Bluetooth® 5 to broader markets with the first CC2640R2F-based certified module

Jonathan Kaye — Wed, 24 May 2017 18:01:27 GMT

At the onset of 2017, the release of Bluetooth® 5 turned heads with its offerings of longer range and faster data throughput. And TI’s CC2640R2F wireless microcontroller (MCU) was the first to place this new technology in the hands of development engineers.

The Laird SaBLE-x-R2 certified module, based on this device, helps simplify the integration of wireless technologies, mitigating design risk, minimizing certification testing requirements and lowering costs. To better understand how a Bluetooth 5 certified module solution allows product managers and design engineers to bring Internet of Things (IoT) differentiation to their product lines, we asked Laird about this module.

Q: What is the SaBLE-x-R2?
A: The SaBLE-x-R2 (pictured in Figure 1) is the first module on the market based on the new CC2640R2F wireless MCU. The SaBLE-x-R2 includes Bluetooth 5 capabilities in a self-contained, broadly certified module to better address the growing data and performance demands for IoT deployments.

In 2015, LSR (now a Laird business) introduced the SaBLE-x, which was the first commercially available module based on TI’s SimpleLink CC2640 chipset. The SaBLE-x-R2 builds on the field-proven hardware of the SaBLE-x to provide an easy upgrade path for Bluetooth 5 connectivity with the CC2640R2F. Designed to remove complexity and accelerate development time, it’s pin-to-pin compatible with the original SaBLE-x hardware, which means that upgrading does not require any printed circuit board (PCB) layout changes.

Figure 1: The Laird SaBLE-x-R2 certified module

Q: What makes Laird modules like the SaBLE-x-R2 stand out from its competitors?
A: While IoT technologies are still evolving, Laird’s Connectivity group has more than 35 years of experience enabling wireless product development. Laird helps its customers integrate wireless features faster, with minimal design risk, certification testing time and expenses, by ensuring that its modules are industrial temperature-rated, have the broadest combination of country certifications and provide pre-certified antenna options. Laird’s development support and electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) testing services provide the precise level and type of support needed for IoT projects throughout a product’s entire design life cycle.

Q: There are many wireless connectivity technologies on the market. What is it about Bluetooth that makes designers embed it in their product applications?
A: Bluetooth offers an excellent solution for creating an easy-to-commission tether between products and a consumer’s mobile device. This gives developers much more design freedom to create interfaces that improve the product experience, reduce product size and/or lower component costs. Plus, Bluetooth’s ubiquitous nature means that consumers can use their mobile devices to harness cloud connectivity for technical support, an improved user experience and simplified reordering of accessories, while employing security methodologies first introduced with Bluetooth v4.2.

Bluetooth 5 expands the benefits and possible applications through enhancements that extend the signal range, increase data throughput or expand broadcasting capabilities in beaconing applications.

Q: Why did Laird choose TI’s SimpleLink CC2640R2F wireless MCU for its Bluetooth module?
A: We have a long-standing partnership as both a modules and TI Design Network partner with TI, and with that comes firsthand knowledge of TI’s leadership in Bluetooth technologies, specifically in terms of its Bluetooth low energy stack. With the CC2640R2F device, TI offers both the necessary hardware and software to support all major enhancements introduced with Bluetooth 5.

Q: Where do you see your technology/solution going in the next five years?
A: For the IoT to meet its full potential, thousands of companies that have never developed a wireless product will need to follow the same path. That is why Laird’s Connectivity group, with its certified radio-frequency modules, will continue to rapidly innovate in the years ahead. Our industry-renowned technical support, IoT product design and development services can help partner with other companies developing these products to accelerate innovations.

SimpleLink™ MCU SDKs: RTOS and POSIX

AdrianFer — Wed, 17 May 2017 20:15:00 GMT

Welcome to the second installment in a series of blog posts that will review the major components of the SimpleLink™ microcontroller (MCU) platform’s software development kits (SDKs). These SDKs feature common components and device-specific middleware that speed time to market and provide a unified development experience across the entire SimpleLink MCU portfolio of wired and wireless devices. Refer to Figure 1 below for a block diagram of the SimpleLink SDK. In this post, I will dive deeper into how components included within the SimpleLink SDK enable you to create deterministic, efficient, scalable applications with a real-time operating system (RTOS).

Figure 1: SimpleLink SDK

TI-RTOS
The SimpleLink SDK is integrated with TI-RTOS, a full-featured real-time OS. All TI SimpleLink SDKs come with the TI-RTOS kernel pre-installed and are Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX)-compliant. TI-RTOS is a robust solution you can trust, already deployed in thousands of applications across various TI embedded solutions. The kernel is open source (Berkeley Software Distribution [BSD] license) and was developed in lockstep with TI’s silicon portfolio to enable very low latency in an efficient code footprint. TI-RTOS helps you optimize your applications for power consumption, performance and code size to meet your unique needs. Specifically, TI-RTOS’ power-management capabilities enable you to achieve aggressive power savings for your applications with minimal effort and intuitive application programming interfaces (APIs).

At the center of the TI-RTOS kernel is the scheduler, which ensures that the highest priority thread is running. This offers deterministic and fast operation. TI-RTOS supports four different types of threads: hardware interrupts (Hwis), Software interrupts (Swis), task and idle, shown in figure 2 below. TI-RTOS offers several thread-communication mechanisms such as semaphores, mailboxes, queues, gates and events. Furthermore, TI-RTOS includes system-level timing services and memory managers to ensure that your application is as efficient and lean as possible.

Figure 2: Types of threads supported in TI-RTOS

FreeRTOS
The SimpleLink SDK was developed to be modular, allowing you to use alternative RTOS kernels beyond TI-RTOS. In addition to TI-RTOS, the MSP432™ and Wi-Fi® CC3220 software development kits (SDKs) also include the ability to use the popular FreeRTOS. The modularity of SimpleLink SDKs make it easy for you to plug in your OS/kernel of preference for maximum flexibility.

POSIX
The SimpleLink SDK also offers POSIX-compatible APIs. POSIX is an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) industry API standard for OS compatibility. The POSIX layer abstracts the RTOS kernel functionality used by applications. Requiring less than 2KB of code in typical applications, the POSIX layer enables the reuse and porting of examples and user applications to a different kernel. Using this layer is optional, but it means that you can use whatever OS you are currently familiar with or want to move to in the future. POSIX compatibility also allows TI third-party partners to interface with SimpleLink SDK devices to add support for their kernel, providing complete freedom to design with any OS, including FreeRTOS.

Runtime Object Viewer
To help you optimize your RTOS-enabled application, TI offers powerful tools to help you debug and monitor your code. Specifically, the Runtime Object Viewer (ROV2) offers a powerful visualization and instrumentation interface to help you monitor thread states, heap usage and central processing unit (CPU) load. Figure 3 below shows a few available dashboards to help you debug. While the ROV2 can provide helpful insight into your RTOS-enabled application, the ROV2 tool is flexible enough to display high-level information relevant to any library, RTOS or not, within your application.

Figure 3: Views available in Runtime Object Viewer utility

Explore more
To learn more about the SimpleLink MCU SDK, review the white paper, “Simplifying software development to maximize return on investment,” visit SimpleLink Academy or download the SDK and start coding immediately with CCS Cloud.

The next installment of this SimpleLink MCU SDK series will provide more insights on Bluetooth® low energy stacks.

The secret to moving faster with Bluetooth® 5

Casey O'Grady — Mon, 08 May 2017 14:57:00 GMT

As the speed increases with Bluetooth® 5, don’t you want to move quickly too? Now it’s easy to pick up the pace with the first fully qualified Bluetooth 5 protocol stack for single-mode Bluetooth low energy applications from TI, supporting high-speed mode.

Bluetooth 5 is groundbreaking. The new high-speed mode allows data transfers up to 2Mbps, twice the speed of Bluetooth 4.2 and five times the speed of Bluetooth 4.0, without increasing power consumption. And in addition to faster speeds, this mode offers significant improvements for energy efficiency and wireless coexistence with reduced radio communication time. Lastly, Bluetooth 5 enables unparalleled flexibility for you to adjust speed and range based on application needs, capitalizing on the high-speed or long-range modes respectively.

Because data transfers are now possible at 2Mbps, you can develop applications using voice, audio, imaging, and data logging that were not previously an option using Bluetooth low energy. With high-speed mode, existing applications will deliver faster responses, richer engagement and longer battery life. Not to mention, Bluetooth 5 enables faster, reliable firmware updates.

The SimpleLink™ Bluetooth low energy CC2640R2F wireless microcontroller (MCU) – which is already in mass production – is the tiniest Bluetooth 5 solution (see Figure 1) with fierce radio-frequency (RF) performance optimized for Internet of Things (IoT) end nodes. The CC2640R2F device is also ideal for industrial applications since it can be easily added to an existing host MCU as a network processor to ensure system design flexibility.

Figure 1: Package sizes for the CC2640R2F wireless MCU

Developers interested in trying out the extended range can also test drive the Bluetooth 5 coded physical layers (PHYs) (the long-range mode) using two CC2640R2F LaunchPad™ development kits (kit shown in Figure 2) to measure the achievable distance of this mode.

Figure 2: CC2640R2F LaunchPad development kit

The real secret to moving faster with Bluetooth 5 is getting started today. Whether you are designing a connected medical device, smart meter or motor condition monitor, Bluetooth 5 enables you to double your speed. With TI’s fully qualified Bluetooth 5 protocol stack, you can rapidly start development today and have more time to innovate.

Get started by downloading the industry’s first fully qualified Bluetooth 5 protocol stack (BLE5-Stack)!

Additional resources:

View the first qualified listing for single-mode Bluetooth low energy high speed mode on the Bluetooth SIG’s website
After downloading the SimpleLink CC2640R2 Software Development Kit (SDK), leverage TI’s Bluetooth 5 Throughput Demo to test BLE5-Stack’s 1Mbps, 2Mbps, 1+2 Mbps, and Coded PHYs
For interactive training modules, feel free to check out our page on SimpleLink Academy

Talk to your TI SimpleLink™ wireless MCU LaunchPad™ Development Kit in only 15 minutes

Peter Radsliff — Fri, 28 Apr 2017 17:18:00 GMT

When companies decide to connect their products through the internet, they have a big job ahead of them. So big, in fact, that it can represent no less than a total business transformation (my company, Arrayent, even wrote an e-book about that).

A common first step is to pursue a proof-of-concept (PoC) project to convince company stakeholders what their connected products could potentially do. Arrayent has created a development kit (DevKit) that gets basic connected demos up and running with the TI SimpleLink™ Wi-Fi® CC3220 LaunchPad™ kit and also provides interoperability with Amazon Echo/Alexa and a Nest learning thermostat (all shown in Fig. 1 below). Best of all, you can get it all up and running in only 15 minutes.

Figure 1: The Arrayent DevKit with TI’s SimpleLink CC3220 LaunchPad kit enables Alexa and Nest interoperability

Internet of Things interoperability in only 15 minutes

It really is easy to quickly create a cloud-connected product prototype. Here’s how:

Request a development kit; if you qualify to receive one, install the sample embedded app onto a TI SimpleLink CC3220 LaunchPad development kit. Arrayent provides full instructions.
Install the supplied Arrayent DevKit mobile app directly onto an Android mobile phone or tablet.

You will now be able to monitor and/or control features on the LaunchPad board using the DevKit mobile app: two LEDs, a temperature sensor, a switch-operated counter and threshold alerts.

You can then link a Nest learning thermostat and use its ability to sense home and away states to affect attributes on the LaunchPad. Linking a Nest account is easy within the Arrayent DevKit mobile app; just follow the prompts and enter a Nest username and password. Linking to Nest demonstrates the kind of Internet of Things (IoT) product interoperability made possible by the Arrayent EcoAdaptor framework.

You can also control and query LaunchPad attributes by voice using an Amazon Echo/Alexa. To connect your Echo to the LaunchPad kit, log into the Amazon account that contains an Echo and visit the Alexa Skills store to enable the Arrayent DevKit skill. You then can say, “Alexa, ask Arrayent DevKit to turn on the red light” “Alexa, ask Arrayent DevKit what the temperature is,” or any of the other DevKit attributes listed.

While it’s easy to get connected and interoperating with Echo/Alexa and Nest, what comes next is truly the most exciting part. The Arrayent DevKit provides embedded source code, so you can use the CC3220 LaunchPad kit to prototype your actual connected product. You can also configure the data model on the Arrayent cloud to suit the attributes of that product. The mobile app source code is included so that you can prototype the user experience. The only thing remaining is to schedule a demo for company executives so that they can see what a genius you were to get this up and running in less than a day.

The importance of use cases

TI LaunchPad development kits, SimpleLink microcontrollers (MCUs), Arrayent IoT cloud services and DevKits are tremendously powerful platforms for development. But just being able to connect a product to the internet doesn’t mean that you necessarily should. Be sure to fully envision why the product will be better by being connected, and whether there’s a business model to pay for a product that is always on and needs support year after year. Most importantly, experiment to discover compelling use cases that will either greatly improve the end-user experience or the business case for producing and supporting the product. All the connectivity in the world will not help a product sell, unless you can communicate the benefits at the time of sale. Check out the Arrayent A4 program for tips on how to plan your entire connected product program.

Additional resources

Learn more about the SimpleLink CC3220 LaunchPad development kit and SimpleLink MCU platform.
Get more information and free downloadable e-books that detail Arrayent’s IoT cloud services.
Check out the Arrayent developer website.

Designing a reliable grid edge for distributed energy resources

Ryan May85 — Fri, 21 Apr 2017 16:58:00 GMT

The smart grid today has pushed utilities to their limit. With the emergence of distributed energy resources (DER) and atypical loads, the operation and construction of the power grid needs revamping. The current approach for solving these challenges is based on a centralized architecture: deploy connected devices, communicate with the cloud, then have utilities make requests to those various clouds. But this method presents challenges for scalability, massive data collection, security and privacy, and stranded assets.

To address these challenges, Intwine, an IoT technology company, is designing a truly smart and reliable “grid edge” (also known as the broader network of homes and businesses that consume energy). Electric utilities are asking consumers to make more decisions and be more intimately involved in grid operations. This market trend requires decentralized decision-making in order to further grid optimizations like transactive energy, in which all levels of energy consumption and generation are able to interact with one another.

Intwine has worked with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for several years to develop a research platform and commercial product offering for delivering decentralized transactive energy services. The core of its system solution is Intwine’s grid edge controller, designated by the acronym HEMS (home energy management system) in the NREL systems architecture shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: HEMS within the NREL system architecture

The HEMs lives at the grid edge in a home or building. It is responsible for managing local loads participating in utility-led demand response (DR) and ancillary services programs. At no point does the decision process leave the physical platform. This ensures that customer data such as load history, state and preferences remain on the HEMs. Keeping the decision-making local reduces the amount of data transmitted to the cloud, reducing bandwidth usage. The HEMs also enables the system response to be determined quickly without any cloud communication latency or risk of no connection. In fact, decision-making does not rely on an internet connection at all.

Together, Intwine and NREL installed and tested numerous device loads including water heaters, pool pumps, thermostats, relays and electric vehicle chargers. Intwine is actively engaged in industry research projects to integrate solar and battery storage inverters into the system, which will enable microgrids. Local coordination among these various loads and supplies requires the HEMS to locally execute decision-making algorithms and be flexible enough to communicate with a variety of standards-based and proprietary device connectivity schemes.

By partnering with Texas Instruments, Intwine was able to quickly convert TI’s BeagleBone development platform into a commercially viable smart grid edge controller/gateway. TI’s Sitara™ AM335x processor offered the processing capability to move beyond communications protocol translation and enable true edge intelligence/analytics. The TI development platform and support allowed for simple integration with the WiLink™ 8 family for Wi-Fi®/Bluetooth® and SimpleLink™ CC2530 for zigbee connectivity.

Intwine also pulled out the extra processor input/output (I/O) to an externally accessible connector, which enables connectivity support for additional wired or wireless standards-based communication protocols as well as proprietary implementations. Intwine’s Connected Gateway has not only become a preferred grid edge development platform for many energy research labs, it is also proving to be a commercial solution that addresses remote intelligence requirements in the smart grid market and beyond.

The Intwine Connected Gateway, based on the TI BeagleBone platform, turns the smart grid’s data into actions at the grid edge. These actions are based on unique consumer preferences and data from hundreds of sensors in each home. The reliable grid edge offers:

Scalability
Improved security
Increased privacy
Increased reliability

Who still thinks it is possible to cost-effectively and reliably manage thousands of locations with a server and a dashboard? To learn more, see intwineconnect.com.

Simplified software development with TI’s CC2640R2F wireless MCU

Casey O'Grady — Wed, 19 Apr 2017 16:05:00 GMT

It’s called a SimpleLink™ microcontroller (MCU), but is it really simple to use? The answer is yes. The CC2640R2F is part of the SimpleLink MCU platform, which fosters unified software development with rich documentation and fast evaluation in a cloud-based integrated development environment (IDE). Building on that foundation, a plethora of sample applications make Bluetooth® low energy software development as easy as 1, 2, 3 – literally:

1. Begin with TI’s software development kit (SDK). The SimpleLink CC2640R2 SDK packages the TI real-time operating system (TI-RTOS), peripheral drivers and sample applications all in one. Beginning with the documentation overview, the SDK provides a quick start guide, migration and porting guides, and release notes (Figure 1). After downloading the SDK, you can leverage starter applications such as peripheral, central, broadcaster, observer and network processor. These fundamental projects are templates for you to begin developing and customizing your own Bluetooth low energy applications.

Figure 1: Suggested workflow for getting started with TI’s SimpleLink Bluetooth low energy development environment

There is also support for more advanced projects such as multirole, over-the-air download (OAD), and Eddystone, an open Bluetooth low energy beacon format from Google. After downloading the SDK, you can leverage the feature-rich desktop-based IDE Code Composer Studio™ software. Or you can begin without downloading the SDK using Code Composer Studio Cloud, a browser-based IDE. Integrated Resource Explorer helps you easily find the necessary documentation for even faster evaluation.

2. Check out the Bluetooth low energy example pack. As an expansion to the SDK, the example pack supports example projects for a glucose sensor, heart-rate monitor, human interface device (HID) keyboard and voice-enabled remote control (Figure 2). This is a valuable repository of models that are easy to adapt and lay the foundation for developing a unique application.

Figure 2: Sample application projects included in the example pack

3. Harness the Bluetooth Developer Studio TI plugin. Beyond the generated applications included in the SDK and example pack, TI supports the Bluetooth Special Interest Group’s (SIG) Bluetooth Developer Studio. This is a graphical user interface (GUI)-based environment that can help you quickly build any Bluetooth low energy profile. For example, if you’re looking to generate a weight scale profile, you can leverage the TI code generator plugin within Bluetooth Developer Studio to generate buildable source code that accelerates development time. New users can explore TI’s SimpleLink Academy training to learn how to use the TI plugin for Bluetooth Developer Studio (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Implementing Project Zero services using Bluetooth Developer Studio

Following TI’s three-step process makes Bluetooth low energy software development streamlined and simple. Ready to start? Download the SimpleLink CC2640R2 SDK today.

Additional resources:

Start evaluating with the SimpleLink Bluetooth low energy CC2640R2F LaunchPad development kit.
Begin with Project Zero and propel your first Bluetooth low energy application.

Latest Energia version brings Arduino-compatible APIs to the SimpleLink™ MCU platform

AdrianFer — Fri, 14 Apr 2017 14:30:00 GMT

Energia is a TI and community-driven software framework integrated development environment (IDE) that provides Wiring/Arduino-compatible application program interfaces (APIs) to various TI microcontrollers (MCUs), including those found in the newly expanded SimpleLink™ platform. By adopting the Wiring/Arduino framework, you can leverage a large base of community-developed examples and projects with TI MCUs.

The latest version of Energia is now built on top of the SimpleLink software development kit (SDK) and further abstracts peripheral drivers so that they are identical to those found in the Wiring/Arduino framework (digitalWrite, digitalRead and analogRead).

Figure 1: Energia IDE user interface

In addition, the SimpleLink platform is able to take advantage of a novel version of Energia called Energia MT. With Energia MT, you can easily create multitasked applications and run multiple Energia sketches in parallel within the same device. This is possible by leveraging the TI-real time operating system (TI-RTOS), which is delivered as part of the SimpleLink SDK, and which Energia is now based on. This approach makes it easier to create more complex applications through multitasking while still taking advantage of the intuitive Arduino-compatible APIs.

You can merge multiple Energia sketches into one project by simply running them in a separate task, then using global variables or RTOS messaging queues/mailboxes to exchange data between those various tasks. Energia MT makes multitasking easy – just create a separate setup() and loop() function for each task you want to instantiate, and Energia MT will handle the required TI-RTOS APIs behind the scenes.

Last but not least, you can take advantage of the various development tools supported by the SimpleLink platform, including the CCS Cloud IDE. This tool facilitates programming with Arduino-compatible APIs using a browser-based IDE, which includes basic debugging functionality. And thanks to the debugging compatibility, you can now set breakpoints, watch variables or dig deeper into your application within CCS Cloud.

To learn more about Energia and download the IDE, visit www.energia.nu.

SimpleLink™ MCU SDKs: Breaking down TI Drivers

Henry Wiechman — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 17:00:00 GMT

Welcome to the first installment in a series of blog posts that will review the major components of the SimpleLink™ microcontroller (MCU) platform’s software development kits (SDKs). These SDKs feature common components and device-specific middleware that speed time to market and provide a unified development experience across the entire SimpleLink MCU portfolio of wired and wireless devices.

One of the most important components of SimpleLink MCU SDKs are TI Drivers, which offer portable, feature-rich access to device peripherals through easy-to-use functional application programming interfaces (APIs). TI Drivers are open source (Berkeley Software Distribution license [BSD]) and built on a hardware abstraction layer (DriverLib). This device-agnostic approach provides easy portability of the application code across SimpleLink devices now and into the future.

Peripherals exposed through these intuitive and consistent TI Driver APIs include analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), a universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART), a Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI), pulse-width modulation (PWM) and general-purpose input/output (GPIO), among many others. Figure 1 shows the key components of the SDK with TI Drivers highlighted.

Figure 1: TI Drivers within the SimpleLink MCU SDK

TI Drivers currently work with a real-time operating system (RTOS) and all devices within the SimpleLink platform support TI-RTOS. Most SimpleLink devices also support FreeRTOS. However, rather than directly calling a kernel-specific API, TI Driver code examples leverage the Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) and driver porting layer (DPL) to provide a consistent API layer on top of a desired kernel. This consistent API requires less than 2KB of memory for typical applications.

The SimpleLink SDK is also compliant with POSIX, an industry standard Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) abstraction layer, which exposes kernel-related functions through a common set of APIs. POSIX offers source-code compatibility between different RTOS kernels, so regardless of which RTOS variant you select for this example, the application source code is identical and fully portable between TI-RTOS or FreeRTOS.

Using TI Drivers and the POSIX APIs, you can develop an application such as a low-power thermostat using the SimpleLink MSP432™ MCU. And if your needs change, Wi-Fi® connectivity can be added based on a SimpleLink CC3220 wireless MCU or by combining the host MSP432 MCU with the CC3120 wireless network processor. All of the thermostat control software, user interfaces and applications that you develop for the MSP432 MCU-based thermostat are 100 percent reusable in the new Wi-Fi thermostat.

Similarly, if you need to release a Bluetooth® low energy thermostat for phone pairing, all of that software is also portable to a CC2640R2F wireless MCU solution – with or without the host MSP432 MCU. Or when moving to a gateway sensor network in an industrial setting, you can still use the same software developed for that stand-alone thermostat in a Sub-1 GHz sensor network application on a dual-band CC1350 wireless MCU (which also enables a Bluetooth low energy connection to the smartphone). As you can see, it’s easy to enhance system functionality using various connectivity options by reusing the initial application across each SimpleLink MCU without starting from scratch.

TI Driver APIs are fully documented within a doxygen-generated API guide. The API guide is available in TI Resource Explorer and delivered within the SimpleLink SDK. For each TI Driver, you will find a generic usage example, as well as instructions on how to configure and initialize the driver. All functions available for each TI Driver are fully documented to help you exercise the capabilities exposed by the driver.

TI Resource Explorer also provides code examples using TI Drivers. Each example is packaged with a README.html page, which includes documentation and an overview of each example. A Board.html page shows how to access some hardware resources in your software (on-board LEDs, push-buttons, etc.). Without having to download or unzip anything, you can easily explore the contents of the project.

To learn more about the SimpleLink MCU SDK, review the white paper, visit SimpleLink Academy or download the SDK and start coding immediately with CCS Cloud.

The next installment of this SimpleLink MCU SDK series will provide more insights on RTOS and POSIX support.

Well-pad automation through the CC1310 wireless MCU

Scott Allen49 — Fri, 07 Apr 2017 16:30:00 GMT

Oil companies use high-tech radios to automate production sites in cool new ways. Competition in oil production can get pretty ugly, especially when the price of oil is low, as it has been for the past several years. To stay competitive against big players, smaller regional oil and gas companies are turning to well-pad automation practices to keep their costs low and their production reliable and steady.

What is well-pad automation, you ask? Well, to put it simply, it’s the deployment of technology that monitors, measures and manages the production and storage of oil and gas at a well site or storage tank in real time. This technology includes sensors that measure pressure, temperature, flow, level and all sorts of other things that all need to work together in order for a well to produce, store or transport its product.

Once these sensors are deployed, the next step is to add intelligence to automate certain functions that would otherwise require human intervention. Programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and remote terminal units (RTUs) are simple computing devices that automatically take action when certain conditions occur on the pad.

But you thought this blog post was about fancy new high-tech radios – it is! Here’s where they come into the picture. Older radios transported sensor information from the well pad to an operations team, where they viewed the information and decided whether or not to take action. These radios generally transmitted at very low bandwidths (115Kbps-400Kbps), which severely limited the type and amount of data that could be transmitted. This limitation in many cases prevented companies from being able to take advantage of new automation technologies (like smart sensors and devices) that require more bandwidth.

Today, companies like FreeWave Technology Inc. are leveraging technologies like TI’s SimpleLink™ Sub-1 GHz CC1310 wireless microcontroller (MCU) radio chipset as part of a new radio infrastructure that delivers much higher data rates. By combining the microcontroller, a highly optimized radio and an ARM® Cortex®-M3 48MHz application processor into one rugged, industrial-grade, low-power offering, well-pad automation can make a huge leap forward. These radio appliances can deliver data rates as high as 3.7Mbps over 20 miles in some cases, enabling oil producers to deploy more sensors and technologies that improve safety and operational efficiencies and reduce costs. Figure 1 below shows a picture of the FreeWave ZumLink Z9-PE IIoT Programmable Radio (IPR) with 512 MB of RAM and 1 GB of Flash. This device also runs third party and custom industrial applications.

Figure 1: ZumLink Z9-PE IPR

Another cool thing about these radio appliances is that they are programmable. They come with an integrated circuit board (shown in Figure 2 below) equipped with an ARM processor; 512MB of RAM; 1GB of flash storage; and a Linux kernel with support for Python, Java, If This Then That (IFTTT) and many other programming languages.

Figure 1: Non-enclosed, board-level version of the ZumLink Z9-PC IPR

Deploying advanced intelligence into the sensor networks that run their production helps oil companies eliminate additional costs, gather and store more information, and engineer new applications that improve production and safety. Tank-flow management, intelligent security surveillance, data logging and pump shut-off are just a few of the applications that oil companies can deploy in these new networks.

To learn more, feel free to check out the ZumLink IPR product page. More information on other products within the SimpleLink MCU platform is also available here.