Sun SPOT
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Sun SPOT (Sun Small Programmable Object Technology) is a wireless sensor network (WSN) mote (an electronic communication device meant to be the size of a particle of dust) developed by Sun Microsystems. The device is built upon the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. Unlike other available mote systems, the Sun SPOT is built on the Java 2 Micro Edition Virtual Machine (JVM).
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[edit] Hardware
The completely assembled device should be able to fit in the palm of your hand.
[edit] Processing
- 180 MHz 32 bit ARM920T core - 512K RAM - 4M Flash
- 2.4 GHz IEEE 802.15.4 radio with integrated antenna
- USB interface
[edit] Sensor Board
- 2G/6G 3-axis accelerometer
- Temperature sensor
- Light sensor
- 8 tri-color LEDs
- 6 analog inputs
- 2 momentary switches
- 5 general purpose I/O pins and 4 high current output pins
[edit] Battery
- 3.6V rechargeable 750 mAh lithium-ion battery
- 48 uA deep sleep mode
- Automatic battery management provided by the software
[edit] Networking
The motes communicate using the IEEE 802.15.4 standard including the base-station approach to sensor networking. The SPOT supports the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC layer, on top of which e.g Zigbee can be built.
[edit] Security
Sun Labs has reported highly optimized implementations of RSA and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) that can be used on small embedded devices.
[edit] Software
The device's use of Java device drivers is particularly remarkable as Java is known for its ability to be hardware-independent. Sun SPOT uses a small J2ME (Squawk [1]) which runs directly on the processor without an OS.
[edit] Development Tools
Standard Java IDEs (e.g. NetBeans) can be used to create SunSPOT applications.
The management and deployment of application will be through "SPOTWorld".
[edit] Availability
A device kit for researchers and hobbiests is to be released late summer 2006 at a projected price of $500.
