The DS18B20 is a programmable digital thermometer that needs no calibration and uses only one wire of the microcontroller. The DS18B20 is extremely popular as a temperature sensor, for obvious reasons: they're digital, and require no calibration, in contrast to using a thermistor or similar analogue device which would need to be characterised against reference temperatures. They're not as cheap as analogue components, but their simplicity of use and accuracy probably make up for that in scientific applications. The devices are also notable as using the OneWire protocol developed by Dallas Semiconductor (now Maxim) and used in (amongst other devices) their iButton devices. Essentially OneWire is an embedded systems equivalent of USB that allows a set of devices to be chained together and addressed using only one pin on a microcontroller. This means that there's no real limit on the number of sensors that even a small chip can make use of. The datasheet is available if needed, but they're so easy to use and have such good software support (see below) that there's no real need to refer to it. The sensors are packaged almost like transistors, with three wires for ground, power, and data. The easiest way to use them is to power them directly with 5V and ground, and use the third wire for communications. (There's also a "parasitic" mode that takes power from the data bus, which I haven't got to work yet.) The communications line is the "one wire" that runs the communications protocol. Using OneWire devices, and DS18B20s in particular, is made very simple by the existence of two libraries, providing the protocol driver and temperature conversion and packaging respectively. Links and installation instructions can be found on the 3rd-part tools and libraries page.  

A small sensor network now working, with two edge devices talking to a base station.  This step of the project accomplishes two things: is gets API networking mode working for the XBee radios, and makes sure the the interaction between software on the Arduinos and software running on the base station work too. The data stream is simple enough: each Arduino counts up from 0 to 255 every 5s, passing the result up to the co-ordinator radio. A Processing program on the laptop collects the numbers and prints them. Naturally they become somewhat intertwined as their clocks aren't quite synchronised. Actually this is enough to perform a simple radio survey to check transmission distance: we can move the radios away from the base station until they lose contact (nominally 100m for these 2mW radios, in reality probably substantially less), then move back into range, and then move one of the radios again to check that it meshes with the intermediate node in reaching back to the base station. This will also check that battery power works.  The software is quite straightforward, and the xbee-arduino library handles all the low-level communications -- although it's very low-level, fine for the experienced programmer but probably all but mystifying to anyone not used to this kind of software. The corresponding Java xbee-api library is slightly more friendly, but only slightly: they probably both need wrapping into a framework that hides the radio nastiness. I think the biggest hurdle for this sort of system is the data format -- or, more precisely, the need (or desire, at least) to to use C at one end and Processing/Java at the other, which means that the data on the wire is being described twice. A framework approach could use (for example) JSON, although there'd still be a need to make sure it was compactly encoded and transmitted.

A library for using XBee radios with Arduinos. The XBee radio operates in two modes: transparent or text-based, and API or binary-based. The latter (API mode) is generally considered more suitable for computer-to-computer interactions, as it's faster and simpler for computers to manipulate. However, using an XBee in this mode requires additional software. The xbee-arduino library provides Arduino functions to access the API mode functionality of the various XBee radio modules. The library is quite low-level, but does provide access to all the necessary functions like issuing AT commands to control the modem and sensing and receiving packets of data to other radios in the mesh network. To use the library you download the latest version from the web page and unpack it into the libraries/ directory of your Arduino IDE. You also need to make sure that the radios you use have the API function set installed using X-CTU, as the library only makes sense for radios in API mode. You also have to set the "AP" parameter to 2 when writing the firmware.

Managing Digi's XBee radio modules requires using their X-CTU package to upload the correct firmware. In this post we explain how. This post is slightly depressing: not because it's on an unhappy topic, but because the effort and software needed to manage XBee radios is so complex to set up. In many ways this is just a function of the good design of the XBee: it's so minimal in terms of footprint and power consumption at run-time that it offloads a lot of work to external tools (and the user) at system build-time. But it's still a lot of work to get such a small piece of kit running. X-CTU is intended to upload firmware to XBee radio modules. This is needed to change the firmware between router and co-ordinator of the Zigbee mesh network, and between the different protocol variants that the XBee radios can support.  One limitation of X-CTU is that it only works on Windows: if you're running Linux, X-CTU will run under Wine. You can download the latest X-CTU from Digi's X-CTU page; alternatively, there's a version installed on the Citizen Sensing VM. To use X-CTU you need to connect your XBee module to your computer. The easiest way to do this is using an XBee USB breakout board, which provides an XBee socket and a USB socket. Insert the radio into the board, plug in a USB cable, and plug the other end into a USB socket. The light on the breakout board will then come on (see photograph above).  You next need to start up X-CTU and tell it where the XBee is. It hangs off a Windows COM port, and X-CTU will typically find it automatically. You should then be able to press the "Test/Query" button, and X-CTU will interrogate the XBee and display a small window showing some information about it, as shown in the screenshot on the right: the details don't matter, but this shows that the XBee is talking to the computer properly.  Assuming everything is now working correctly, the next step is to decide what firmware to download to the radio. Click on the "Modem configuration" tab, and then click the "Read" button: this reads the firmware that's on the XBee at the moment, and puts the details into the window. Typically this results in a display like that shown on the left. The important things to notice are the two drop-down boxes labelled "Function Set" and "Version". The function set is the description of the firmware, in which case indicating that the XBee is running Zigbee router firmware that responds to AT commands (more on this below).  To download a new firmware, we then select the function set and version we want to use. Suppose we want to make this XBee into the mesh co-ordinator. We change the function set to "Zigbee Coordinator AT" (keeping with Zigbee and the AT command set) in  "Function set" the drop-down, then select the most recent version of this function set from the "Version" drop-down. (Versions are identified by hex numbers: the most recent in the screenshot right is "20A7", that being the highest hex number. Unfortunately X-CTU orders the numbers alphabetically, not in hex-numeric order.) Pressing "Write" will update the radio's firmware, and the radio is then ready for use as a co-ordinator. If you look through the list of function sets, there will be quite a few options, including protocols other than Zigbee. These probably aren't worth too much exploration, but you'll also notice that there are Zigbee AT and API function sets corresponding to the two modes (transparent and API) that the XBee can support. Be sure to select the correct one for your application. That's it: the radio is now ready for use.

Advanced use: setting optional parameters

There's one more thing that X-CTU can be used for: it can set parameters to the firmware function set, and this is sometimes important when using the radios.  When you've read the firmware from a radio, the main part of the X-CTU window contains a hierarchy of folders and cryptic values, for example "(4) PL - Power level". These are parameters that can be changed to modify the detailed behaviour of the radio. Some can also be set using AT commands. The example we used sets the radio's power level to 4. If you click on this, it will show a drop-down box giving other options. You might, for some applications, choose to reduce the radio power to 1 ("low") to save batteries. If you choose this and then write the firmware to the radio, the module will use this power setting. In the example shown on the left, we're changing the AP parameter ("API enable") to 2, which is needed for the xbee-arduino library to work properly. If we now write the firmware (with the Zigbee co-ordinator API function set selected as shown), the radio will be ready for use.

A mesh network is a way of setting up a communications system when there's no fixed infrastructure available. They're often used for communications in remote sites, and on sensor networks. If you've used wifi, you've used an infrastructural wireless network in which there is a dedicated router that talks to all the devices in its range (phones, tablets, laptops, wireless-enabled printers, ...) and connects them to the internet. The devices don't talk to each other directly: if they want to exchange information (to print a document, for example) they do via the router. Another kind of infrastructural network is the cellular telephone service. All calls go through the cell towers: if you call your friend, and she happens to be standing next to you, your phone still talks to the nearest cell tower which then talks to her phone -- a round trip that might be a couple of kilometres! While this sounds a bit barmy, it simplifies the design of the network and the software needed to manage it, and is fine in situations where there is plenty of power and room for the infrastructure. By contrast to these large-scale systems, XBees provide mesh networking in which the devices co-operate to route traffic from the sensor motes (using router radios) to the base station (running a co-ordinator radio). As well as generating and receiving messages, nodes in the network also co-operate in moving other nodes' traffic. There is no infrastructure -- the nodes are both the users and the providers of the network -- which means a mesh can be deployed in areas without any "official" network coverage, or to provide functions (like low power) that the infrastructure that is available can't deliver. Each mesh network works on a particular network protocol, different to the ones used for wifi or cellular telephony.