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Wireless Sensor Network: Animal Detection System

Introduction to New Hardware


Wireless sensor network focuses on the data transmission between sensor nodes. A sensor node must be able to transmit data frame to the sensor node meters away. For the hardware used in the last term, the effective transmission must be within several meters. Some factors limit the range of transmission. The first component is RF transceiver. CC430F6137 core integrates CC1101 sub 1 GHz RF transceiver. In project A, Nordic nRF24L01A was used as transceiver. Comparing the features of RF transceivers, we can get the conclusion: CC1101 is powerful than Nordic nRF24L01A. CC1101: Low supply voltage 2.0V to 3.6V Frequency band is 300 MHz to 348 MHz, 389 MHz to 464 MHz and 779 MHz to 928 MHz Programmable output power up to +12 dB for all supported frequencies Supported clear channel access which means listen before transmit Auto address check and CRC guarantee reliable data transfer

nRF24L01A Low supply voltage 1.9V to 3.6V Worldwide 2.4 GHz ISM band operation Up to 2Mbps air data rate at 0 dB output power Auto transaction handling and CRC Enhanced shock burst mode

For transceivers, CC1101 is able to transmit data at 12 dB comparing with nRF24L01A at 0 dB. The features shown above indicate that CC1101 transmits in a wider range than nRF24L01A.

RF core in CC430F6137
RF core (CC1101) is integrated with CPU core, which means the communications between RF and CPU are simplified. For external RF transceiver, the key implementation is to initialize SPI communication between microcontroller and RF transceiver. For CC430, there is an interface instead of SPI between them.

Figure 1 CC1101 Block diagram Figure 1 shows the structure of CC1101. This is almost the same as nRF24L01A. The different between them is transmission frequency. For CC1101, the effective frequency ranges are 300 MHz to 348 MHz, 389 MHz to 464 MHz, and 779 MHz to 928 MHZ. For nRF24L01A, the range is 2.4GHz ISM band operation.

Figure 2 nRF24L01A Block diagram

Figure 3 CC430F6137 RF interface

There are two types of RF interface registers: instruction and data. Instruction registers only accept commands such as STX, SRX and so on. Table 1 shows its command list. Table 1 CC1101 RF command list
Instruction Mnemonic SRES Inputs i:[x011 0000] Outputs n/a Description Command strobe: reset radio core SXOFF i:[x011 0010] s:[ssss ssss] Command strobe: radio core to enter SLEEP state SRX i:[x011 0100] s:[ssss ssss] Command strobe: enable RX STX i:[x011 0101] s:[ssss ssss] Command strobe: enable TX SIDLE i:[x011 0110] s:[ssss ssss] Command strobe: exit RX/TX, turn off frequency synthesizer, and exit WOR SWOR i:[x011 1000] s:[ssss ssss]

The data registers are split into two kinds. Input byte and word registers is responsible for input data. If the input is single byte, the command and data byte should be assigned to INSTRW register. The input byte is the same as lower byte of instruction word register. Each operation has one command, optional input data and optional output data. For example, a write to transmitting buffer means that set up to TXBUFFER and give a strobe command SFTX. The code example: TxBuffer = data_out; Strobe(SFTX); A read operation just needs to give a command SFTX. When there is a transmission, CPU will pause and enter into interrupt. When transmission is done, CPU will resume and back to main function.

nRF24L01A Nordic Transceiver


Comparing with CC1101, Nordic Transceiver does not take so many advantages, especially in transmission range. Some key features are highlighted and applied in practical development.

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