RE: [avr-gcc-list] Anyone used Atmel's 802.15.4 stack (or OpenMac) ?

[steve childress]

Having done a lot of 802.15.4 work with several vendors' products, if you
are just starting..., may I suggest that you not use ZigBee yet, must the
MAC. If you NEED meshing or multiple routers, then learn ZigBee.  

Also, compare your application to the transmitter power: some are 1 or
2mWatt, others have a PA and go to 20mW 60mW or more. The max legal power
depends on your country's regulatory authority. 1mW radios have pretty
restrictive range.

MeshNetics is based in Moscow.

Applications such as various sensors are outside the scope of IEEE 802.15.4.
They may be standardized by ZigBee, but I suspect these profiles will remain
proprietary, or there will be just a small number, as is the case with
BlueTooth profiles atop the IEEE defined MAC and PHY for Bluetooth.

-----Original Message-----
From: address@hidden
[mailto:address@hidden On Behalf Of
Joerg Wunsch
Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2007 2:43 PM
To: address@hidden
Subject: Re: [avr-gcc-list] Anyone used Atmel's 802.15.4 stack (or OpenMac)
?

"Robert Rozman" <address@hidden> wrote:

> - do you perhaps have published some more info about your work ?

What we published is what you can find as the current Atmel MAC. ;-)

> - did you find any bugs ?

Sure... all important ones have been fixed in the release.  But you
know, there's always one more bug.  Remember there's an official Atmel
helpline (avr at atmel com).

> - any other general experiences about stack, used HW etc...

These stacks tend to be quite resource intensive, but you've got an
ATmega1281 controller, that's plenty.

With Atmel being a chip manufacturer and Meshnetics being a software
vendor (who even does have a working ZigBee stack, which sits on top
of 802.15.4), the Meshnetics stack might be the better one.

> - are there any extensions being published and made to more complete
> wireless nodes (ADCs, switches, sensors, etc..) ?

Not that I know of.  But seriously, connecting a switch or an ADC to
an AVR is a few lines of code only, you should be able to find plenty
of examples for that.

> - also curious how to minimize energy consumption of nodes (I'm
> using atmega1281V)....

You should get acquainted with the details of IEEE 802.15.4 networks
in general.  Energy consumption is highly dependant on your usage
profile.  If you're using the Atmel MAC, make sure you get the most
recent version (I think it's 1.6) because previous versions didn't
power-down the transceiver while idle.  That has now been implemented.
(IMHO the Meshnetics stack can do it, but I never looked at their
opensource offering.)

-- 
cheers, J"org               .-.-.   --... ...--   -.. .  DL8DTL

http://www.sax.de/~joerg/                        NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)


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