Designing Low Power Wireless Systems

Telos / Tmote Sky

Joe Polastre
UC Berkeley Moteiv Corporation

Faster, Smaller, Numerous

Moores Law
Stuff

Bells Law
New

(transistors, etc) doubling every 1-2 years

computing class every 10 years

Streaming Data to/from the Physical World

log (people per computer)

year 2

Applications

Monitoring

Interactive and Control

Habitat Monitoring Integrated Biology Structural Monitoring

Pursuer-Evader Intrusion Detection Automation

Berkeley Motes Timeline

Rene
Experimentation

Mica
Open Experimental Platform

Telos
Integrated Platform

WeC
Smart Rock

Dot
Scale

Spec
Mote on a chip

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004
4

Low Power Operation

Efficient Hardware

Integration and Isolation

Complementary functionality (DMA, USART, etc)

Selectable Power States (Off, Sleep, Standby) Operate at low voltages and low current

Run to cut-off voltage of power source

Efficient Software

Fine grained control of hardware Utilize wireless broadcast medium Aggregate

Typical WSN Application

Communications

Short active time

processing data acquisition communication

Periodic

Data Collection Network Maintenance

Triggered Events

Detection/Notification
Power

Duty Cycled

Sleep 99+% of time Milliseconds or less

Active time is very short

Long Lifetime

Months to Years without changing batteries Power management is the key to WSN success

sleep
Time

Design Principles

Key to Low Duty Cycle Operation:

Sleep majority of the time Wakeup quickly start processing Active minimize work & return to sleep For long lived wireless networks, optimize sleep, then wakeup, then active current consumption and processing time

For low duty cycle networks, active mode optimizations (like dynamic voltage scaling) provide insignificant benefits

Sleep

Majority of time, node is asleep

>99%

Minimize sleep current through

Isolating

and shutting down individual circuits Using low power hardware

Need RAM retention

Run auxiliary hardware components from low speed oscillators (typically 32kHz)
Perform

ADC conversions, DMA transfers, and bus operations while microcontroller core is stopped

Wakeup

Overhead of switching from Sleep to Active Mode

Reduce wasted energy due to switching modes Microcontroller Radio (IEEE 802.15.4)

30

cap charging load regs osc on

Current (mA)

enter rx rx

20 10 0 -0.5

Time (ns)
Texas Instruments MSP430 Fx1xx

0.5 1 1.5 Time (ms)

2.5

Chipcon CC2420

292 ns 10ns 4ms typical

1.6 ms 1 10 ms typical
9

Active

Microcontroller

Fast processing, low active power Avoid external oscillators

External Flash (stable storage)

Data logging, network code reprogramming, aggregation High power consumption Long writes

Radio

Radio vs. Flash

High data rate, low power tradeoffs Increased complexity vs robusness to noise

250kbps radio sending 1 byte

Energy : 1.5mJ Duration : 32ms Energy : 3mJ Duration : 78ms

Atmel flash writing 1 byte

10

Selecting a Radio

Narrowband

Wideband

Low bit rate (< 250kbps) Lower frequencies higher range Simple channel modulation Susceptible to noise (narrow frequency use) Low power consumption (<15mA) Fast wakeup times (some may be clocked by MCU) Examples: RFM TR1000, Chipcon CC1020

High bit rate (100kbps+) High frequencies Global ISM band at 2.4GHz Complex channel modulation Robust to noise (using spreading codes) High power consumption (>20mA) Slow wakeup times (must start external oscillators) Examples: IEEE 802.15.4, Bluetooth

11

Microcontroller Memory Trends

140 Flash RAM 120

100

Kilobytes

80

60

Available RAM has stayed fairly constant Instead of increasing RAM, extra die space used for hardware modules

40

20

DMA: increases performance AND lowers power consumption

0 1975

1980

1985

1990 Year

1995

2000

2005

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Accelerators vs Modules

Hardware Modules

Accelerators

Software routines pushed into hardware Lose flexibility

Example: encryption

Isolated to specific component

Break modules up into accelerators Let software tie them together Considerable flexibility Spec (Jason Hill thesis)

Radio or Microcontroller

Examples:

Examples:

Packet handling support Encryption Data busses and Timers

RF Interrupt Handling Encryption Simple DMA for Tx/Rx

Unfortunately, most manufacturers are moving to Modules, not Accelerators Examples: Newly released Chipcon CC2430, Ember EM250
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Putting it all together

Low Power Microcontroller

Low ESR fast starting oscillator

Wireless Transceiver Real Time Clock 32.768kHz for low power modes

Disconnect unused peripherals

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Telos

Applications

Monitoring H/VAC, Structural, Environmental, Medical Low Power Long Lifetime Easy to use Robust hardware and software High Performance

Principles

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Telos

Wireless sensor module for building applications Standards Based

USB IEEE 802.15.4/Zigbee TinyOS Expansion to other sensors

Low Power

Hardware designed from software principles for low power operation Isolation, buffering, fast wakeup from sleep

IEEE 802.15.4

Low Cost

Integrated design 50m range indoors 125m range outdoors

New wireless standard for low power communication CC2420 radio 250kbps 2.4GHz ISM band Zigbee-compatible

16

Low Power Operation

TI MSP430 -- Advantages over other microcontrollers

Integrated wireless module

16-bit core 12-bit ADC < 50nA port leakage (vs. 1mA for Atmels) Double buffered data buses Interrupt priorities Calibrated DCO

Buffers and Transistors Switch on/off each sensor and component subsystem

17

Hardware Isolation

Experiences from Great Duck Island

One component failure kills entire system Must isolate and detect failures Remove/Turn off voltage regulators Microcontroller turns on/off Fine-grained control of power consumption Reduce node failures from a single faulty component

Each sub-circuit on Telos is isolated

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Minimize Power Consumption

Compare to using the AVR MCU and 802.15.4 radio

Sleep

Majority of the time, including peripherals Telos: 5.1mA AVR: 30mA

Wakeup

As quickly as possible to process and return to sleep Telos: 290ns typical, 6ms max AVR: 60ms max internal oscillator, 4ms external Get your work done and get back to sleep Telos: 4-8MHz 16-bit AVR: 8MHz 8-bit

Active

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CC2420 Transceiver

Fast data rate, robust signal

250kbps : 2Mchip/s : DSSS 2.4GHz : Offset QPSK : 5MHz 16 channels in 802.15.4 -94dBm sensitivity

Low voltage operation

1.8V minimum supply

Software assistance for low power microcontrollers

128byte TX/RX buffers for full packet support Automatic address decoding and automatic acknowledgements Hardware encryption/authentication Link quality indicator (assist software link estimation)

samples error rate of first 8 chips of packet (8 chips/bit)

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Power Calculation Comparison

Design for low power

AVR + CC1000

AVR + CC2420

Telos (TI MSP)

0.2 ms wakeup 30 mW sleep 33 mW active 21 mW radio 19 kbps 2.5V min

0.2 ms wakeup 30 mW sleep 33 mW active 45 mW radio 250 kbps 2.5V min

0.006 ms wakeup 2 mW sleep 3 mW active 45 mW radio 250 kbps 1.8V min

2/3 of AA capacity

2/3 of AA capacity

8/8 of AA capacity

Supporting mesh networking with a pair of AA batteries reporting data once every 3 minutes using synchronization (<1% duty cycle)

453 days

328 days

945 days
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Duty Cycle vs Lifetime

Lifetime (days) vs Period (seconds)
10000.00 AVR+CC1000 AVR+CC2420 MSP430+CC2420 1000.00

100.00

10.00

1.00

0.10 0.01

0.1

10

100

1000

10000

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Supporting Software

Pushing information up the stack

100%

Link Quality Indicator Packet Yield

0% 0ft

250ft

Distance
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Increasing Robustness

Golden Image

Problem: Faulty software causes the system to halt Solution: Store known good image in write protected flash
Microcontroller

Flash
ST M25P80
SPI

Write OK

USB
USB Power

Write FAIL

Write Protect

USB Disconnected Next year marks the release of MCUs with 1MB Flash and Protected Segments
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Entering the Golden Image

Watchdog
Count

number of resets a low power state

Voltage
Maintain

User Input
Button

presses

Other options
Grenade

timer (XSM/Trio)

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Key Contributions

New design approach derived from our experience with resource constrained wireless sensor networks

Active mode needs to run quickly to completion Wakeup time is crucial for low power operation

Wakeup time and sleep current set the minimum energy consumed

Sleep most of the time Isolation: Fine grained software control Protected Golden Image Careful microcontroller/radio selection to meet app requirements

Principles for increased robustness

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Want to experiment with Telos?

Constraints:

Up to 4 powered hubs in a chain USB cables up to 5m in length Up to 127 devices on a USB bus 30m radius About a hundred motes Usable for a large room Off the shelf hardware

Practical testbed limits:

Low cost approach

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