Please check out our new website and company focus at www.sentilla.com
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A recent article has been published that talks about wireless location tracking. Location is often referred to as the "holy grail" for wireless solutions since it allows motes to be deployed in a truly ad-hoc manner. There are multiple methods for figuring out where a mote is--the most commonly used method is GPS. GPS chipsets have significantly advanced in the last 10 years, where the power consumption is low and the accuracy is very high. Integrating GPS with motes is more commonplace and provides a very good solution for outdoor deployments with a clear view of the sky.
For indoor situations, the options are less abudant and less accurate. Companies like Rosum offer location positioning based on TV signals, but these only work well in metropolitan areas. Why is that a problem? Well, as the article points out, determining the location of a person in burning building or a mine is not possible using traditional techniques. Instead, the motes must rely on each other to figure out their location. This approach is the most difficult, the least accurate, but has extremely promising uses.
We're constantly tracking the new location technologies that are coming on to the market. Some companies are proposing ultra-wideband which uses a slew of different frequencies to address the issues with a single signal bouncing around like in the case of WiFi. But the most fundamental is to measure and calibrate the strength of signal received from other motes. Basically each mote listens to its neighbors and then computes the distance based on how loud its neighbors are talking. Not very accurate, but sometimes knowing within 10-20m where someone is located is more than enough to rescue them from a dangerous situation.
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With the recent bridge collapse in Minnesota and mine collapse in Utah, the need to detect critical failures is necessary for public safety. Imagine authorities in Minnesota receiving real-time updates on each bridge and then correlating this data with periodic maintenance exams. Authorities can quickly react to any problems, dispatch crews to problem spots, and maintain a healthy infrastructure.
This notion is not infeasible or science fiction; Professor Kerop Janoyan at Clarkson University in New York is leading a project to monitor bridges in upstate New York using wireless sensors based on Moteiv's technology. He has designed a system that monitors acceleration and vibration in all dimensions, analyzes the data, transmits it wirelessly using Moteiv's Tmote Sky module. Strain gauges are also used; they can alert authorities of significant deformations in the bridge's structure that may lead to collapse. Strain gauges are also commonly used to monitor the integrity of pillars in mines to detect the possibility of collapse before such an event occurs. (Gory details about strain gauges and how they work are available at wikipedia).
An article on the system appears online at EETimes and Professor Janoyan's webpage includes an overview of the system. An older article was written and published by Clarkson University.
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This weekend, Moteiv moved our world headquarters from downtown San Francisco to downtown Redwood City. Our Redwood City facility is our new world headquarters effective Monday, July 23rd. We're excited about the new space, and we have lots of room to grow (and we're hiring, so please submit your resume!). With a huge increase in area over our former facility, Moteiv's new corporate headquarters has expanded facilities to build, test, and deploy wireless systems.
Important Information:
- Fear not, our old phone number (415) 692-0960 still works and routes directly to us in Redwood City. Our fax number (415) 358-4872 remains the same.
- Our new address is 201 Marshall Street, Redwood City CA 94063. More information, including directions, and be found on our contact page. Mail and packages are being forwarded to Redwood City.
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The July 4th holiday has passed and we're back from vacation. Over the past few weeks a number of articles have been written about Moteiv and the applications that we enable.
First off, WiFi Planet published a great overview of what Moteiv has been up to and how we're leading the charge in the wireless sensor network market. In an article entitled "Moteiv: Better than Fairy Dust", Gerry Blackwell describes Moteiv's competencies and gives an overview of the wireless sensor network market.
Read the full article at WiFi Planet >>
ONWorld has been producing quality reports about the wireless sensor network market since 2003. ONWorld recently released a report about the use of wireless technologies in cities. Wireless sensor networks, of course, make cities safer, healthier, greener, and more productive. Featured in the description of the report is the firefighter safety project that Moteiv, UC Berkeley, and others worked on. PC World picked up the report and wrote their own mini review. The folks at ONWorld have been busy; they recently released a report on wireless sensor networks for green buildings.
In other news, Elster Group acquired Coronis, a maker of wireless sensors for automated meter reading. Coronis claims to have 1.2 million wireless sensors in deployment. Elster describes themselves as the world leader in metering technology, so that acquisition is a good match for the two companies.
And finally, a fun application is body sensor networks that monitor athletes. Imperial College London is showing off wireless sensors that can monitor our health and help train athletes. The system was used at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in the UK. The event has passed, but if anyone had a chance to check it out, please drop us an email.
Read about the athlete monitoring sensors >>
Description at the Summer Science homepage >>
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M2M Magazine recently asked a number of questions of wireless sensor networking companies to determine the stage of the technology, issues that customers are facing, and outlook for future developments (such as standards). I participated in the Q&A with M2M on behalf of Moteiv, and our answers are featured as part of the supplement.
Participants included:
- Aether Wire
- Arch Rock
- Augusta Systems
- Cirronet
- Coronis Systems
- Crossbow Technology
- Dust Networks
- Eka Systems
- Ember
- Honeywell Sensing & Control
- MaxStream
- MeshNetics
- Millennial Net
- Moteiv
- Pedigree Technologies
- Sensicast Systems
- Tendril
The most common answer that isn't really an answer at all is "it depends on the application". It is true that I can't give you the radio range without knowing where you are deploying the system; however, mesh networking systems are supposed to alleviate the problems with the point-to-point radio range setup and configuration in older designs.
Battery power is another one of these metrics where it ranges anywhere from "we live forever!" to "a little while". I took a difference stance on the battery power question: Adopter's should always verify a vendor's claim about battery life by asking for the conditions under which the claim was made (such as "How often does each node send data?" and "What is the data latency?") and the type of battery that is used (D cells have much more power than AA cells and can sustain a longer lifetime at the expense of package size and cost). Battery life is always a frustrating thing for me to read about on competitors' websites. Sure, slapping the car battery on my tiny sensor mote will let it last 10 years, but is that really practical?
If you want the summary of what the participants are talking about (in my opinion!), here it is. I haven't included everyone, sorry.
- Arch Rock -- IP, IP, IP. Connect sensor networks with IP.
- Augusta Systems -- Management is a solved problem and we've got software for that.
- Coronis Systems -- Focus on automatic meter reading, cluster-tree apps with available backend infrastructure
- Crossbow Technology -- A general position that the "hard problems" have already been solved.
- Dust Networks -- We have reliability and low power and it is the best in the industry.
- Ember -- Metcalfe's Law. The value of the network is proportional to the square of the number of nodes.
- Honeywell Sensing & Control -- Pushing ISA SP100 as the wireless standard.
- MaxStream -- Big focus on OEM support and integration.
- Sensicast Systems -- Solutions are easier to use with web technology like SOAP, REST, XML
- Tendril -- Anyone can use sensor networks. We got software for that.
Download the full reports from M2M Magazine >>
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Bandwave Technology, Moteiv's exclusive distributor to the Greater China region (China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong), has launched Moteiv's Tmote Mini product in the region. Bandwave is an exceptional developer of applications that leverage Moteiv technology. The two companies continue their commitment to easy-to-use sensor networks and worldwide distribution and support of innovative wireless products.
Read the Bandwave Technology press release (in Chinese) >>
Visit www.bandwavetech.com or contact Bandwave at +886-2-8773-7133
United States customers and other international customers may contact Moteiv directly at www.moteiv.com or +1-415-692-0960.
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Today, we're announcing the latest addition to our hardware line of products. Tmote Mini is the newest member of the Tmote product family. It is small, flexible, and designed for deployment. Code compatible with Tmote Sky, Tmote Mini is a direct transition path from development to deployment.
Why should you care about Tmote Mini? Here's a few reasons:
- It's small. Really small. And only 1.8mm thin. That's tiny.
- It fits in a miniSDIO slot. That means PDAs, cell phones, and mobiles are now part of your sensor network.
- You have options--standard RF output or a whopping +20dBm (100mW) power amp. Now that's some long distance range
- Think that Tmote Sky doesn't have enough ports available? We fixed that--Tmote Mini has over 45 ports for hooking up any sensor.
- Tmote Mini sports the Texas Instruments MSP430 microcontroller--one of the most functional and flexible micros on the market.
- In development for over a year, we've run Tmote Mini through a ton of stress tests. The frigid tundra of -40 degrees Celsius and the scorching desert temperatures of +85 degrees Celsius.
Tmote Mini Development Kits are available now at moteiv.com.
Learn more about Tmote Mini >>
Read the Tmote Mini press release >>
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This week's Economist (April 28th edition) has a cover story: "When Everything Connects". On the cover are pictures of sensors communicating wireless to people, including sensors on keys, soil moisture sensors, gas and contamination sensors, vehicle sensors, and refrigerator sensors. The article predicts that in the coming years, wireless will vanish entirely from view, as communication chips are embedded into a host of everyday objects.
The author shares Moteiv's vision--there's a section where the "computing revolution" is described as the ability to access information. Introduced is the "wireless-computing revolution", where information can be accessed anywhere at low cost. We, at Moteiv, take this one step further--not only can the information can be accessed anywhere, but can also provide information about anything, especially real world items, processes, and trends. Objects will talk to other objects, and people will interact as necessary.
On page 11 of the special supplement, the authors talk about the work that Moteiv founders pioneered at UC Berkeley--the applications created for the DARPA NEST program. The article also includes a mention of Moteiv on the same page.
Page 14 continues information about Moteiv, discussing the UCB system that leverages Moteiv technology to track firefighters. One of the concluding observations is a concern over what we will do with all of this sensor data; an astute observation and one that requires careful consideration.
Other friends of ours are mentioned in the article, including Kris Pister and Matt Welsh. Fellow Berkeley startups Dust Networks and Arch Rock also get a shout-out.
If you don't subscribe to the Economist, I recommend picking up a copy (although, most of the stores around my house in San Francisco actually did not carry the magazine). It provides a good overview of the promise of wireless for the outside audience that has not yet been introduced to the world of mesh networks and wireless sensors.
Read the full article at The Economist (subscription required) >>
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Boeing Phantom Works has published a very interesting paper on a system to detect corrosion in aircraft using wireless sensors at IMECE 2006. Previous research into aircraft maintenance has shown that "by far, the largest single maintenance problem facing the operators [airlines] is structural corrosion."
Their proposed solution is an environmentally powered wireless network of Tmote Sky nodes with corrosion sensors. The system is powered by a piezoelectric bimorph energy harvester with a power conditioning circuit. It operates at a 0.13% duty cycle, sending corrosion readings every 30 minutes.
According to the authors, "Moteiv's Tmote Sky transceiver design requires the least amount of power to operate. In addition, the Moteiv transceiver met all of our requirements and was the lowest in cost."
For more information, see the ASME website and look for paper IMECE2006-13381.
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Moteiv has launched our new website this week, with new logo, content, and cleaner look. All of the existing content, including the community pages, are still here in the same place they were before.
There are a number of other developments that we'll be announcing for our website and our products this year. We're excited to start the year off with a new look, because there are many exciting things being cooked up in Moteiv's World Headquarters that we can't wait to share with you.
We started last year by becoming the first wireless sensor company to have a blog and promote what's going on in the industry.
Moteiv welcomes a number of new faces to the company, and we intend to continue building out our killer team. If you've been looking for a job with a startup working on completely new, novel technology, please drop us a line. No email goes unanswered.
Furthermore, if something is exciting to you in the sensor network arena, please send those suggestions to us too.
Hope everyone had a happy new year, and here's to great strides forward for wireless sensors in 2007.
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Texas Instruments is showing videos and handing out flyers about Moteiv's FIRE project at this week's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. If you are attending, but sure to stop by the Texas Instruments booth to check out all of their low power options. The exhibit is at South 2 26426E.
Here is an image of the flyer:
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I've fallen behind on my industry reading. In their November issue, Sensors Magazine named Moteiv's Tmote Invent system one of the top 50 products of 2006. The complete article is available here, the Tmote Invent is on page 9 Needless to say, I am very excited about this recognition, and I only wish that we were notified about it, rather than finding this information during a random internet surfing.
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In addition to the videos on the Discovery Channel and CNN, the FIRE project from UC Berkeley and Moteiv has been written up by a number of different websites and journals. Below are links to articles about the FIRE project.
RFID Journal
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/2717/1/1/
Bill Koslosky's Blog
http://billkosloskymd.typepad.com/wirelessdoc/2006/10/wireless_sensor.html
Gadgetnutz
http://www.gadgetnutz.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=192
Sensors Magazine
http://www.sensorsmag.com/sensors/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=375570
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If you missed the Discovery Channel or CNN broadcasts, the videos are now available on YouTube and embedded into this blog post.
The CNN video can be viewed in its full definition via the CNN website at:
http://www.cnn.com/video/partners/clickability/index.html?url=/video/tech/2006/10/06/velshi.explorers.fire.eye.cnn
Check the YouTube videos at:
WIRED NextFest 2006: Intelligent Fire Information and Rescue Equipment (FIRE)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFky26RedOM
On CNN and CNN Headline News:
CNN Explorer: FireEye and FIRE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzMwj7lLvcA
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CNN has picked up the FIRE project, joint work between the University of California, Berkeley and Moteiv Corporation, for a segment that will air this weekend on CNN and CNN Headline News. The segment on FIRE will air between the following times:
On CNN USA: Friday 11A-12P, 2-3P Saturday 10-11A, 4-5P Sunday 9-10A
On CNN Headline News Friday 6:30-7A, 11-11:30A, 6-7P Saturday 9:30-10A, 12:30-1P Sunday 8-8:30A, 1-1:30P
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The joint work between the University of California, Berkeley, Moteiv, and Chicago on the innovative Fire, Safety, and Rescue Equipment (FIRE) project profiled in our previous post will be featured in a segment on the Discovery Channel and Science Channel next weekend. The story includes live footage of the system in action and interviews with Berkeley students and staff and Moteiv employees.
The full television schedule for the NextFest 2006 show is available at the Science Channel TV Listings and Discovery Channel TV Listings.
The show will air on the following channels at these times (check local listings or TiVo it!)
Science Channel
Sept. 29 9 PM ET/PT
Oct. 1 9 PM ET/PT
Discovery Channel
Oct. 1 11 AM ET/PT
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Our good friend Matt Welsh appears in an article about volcano monitoring that was previously featured on the front page of Moteiv's website. Matt and his team at Harvard deployed a system using Tmote Sky to monitor seismic activity and infrasound (low frequency) vibrations. Details about the project, although with some technical inaccuracies, are included in the article from Network World.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/062606widernet-volcano.html
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Muneeb Ali orchestrated a great paper with some of the top minds that have studied and published work on the issue of media access control in wireless sensor networks. The editorial appeared in this month's ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communications Review. Although I am listed as an author on the paper, the credit belongs to Muneeb who effectively put together the thoughts of many different researchers located continents away from each other.
Read "Medium Access Control Issues for Sensor Networks"
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Moteiv announced today that we're expanding our operations to Asia and Greater China through a partnership with Bandwave Technology. Due to the growing demand for wireless sensors in Asia and the real-world deployment experience that Bandwave has with Moteiv products, we are pleased the region will have better access to Moteiv products, world-class design and integration services from Bandwave, and overall lower cost of ownership of wireless sensor systems.
Bandwave has deployed a number of successful systems with Moteiv products, including an outdoor microclimate monitoring application accessible via the web. The deployment is described in detail at Bandwave's site and live readings can be accessed anywhere in the world.
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Dr. Joe Polastre, Moteiv CEO, will present at the 2006 Wireless Ventures conference in San Jose, May 3 & 4. Dr. Polastre will present on the state of wireless sensor applications and the Moteiv innovations that have enabled our customers.
At this year's Wireless Ventures, the focus is on technologies and services that enable mobility - both for consumers and in the enterprise. As businesses seek to further streamline communications and operations - and as consumers seek a constantly connected lifestyle - wireless networking technologies are increasingly in demand. At Moteiv, we've deployed systems with significant mobility--not your standard monitoring systems--opening up the realm of possibility for wireless sensors to a ton of new applications.
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Moteiv was mentioned in an article about the emergence of wireless sensor companies in today's Wall Street Journal. The article also mentions the "coming out" of Arch Rock, formerly Arched Rock, which was founded by our former advisor at Berkeley.
A sensor industry is gradually evolving in the San Francisco area. One mote maker is Moteiv Corp.,
a closely held company a few blocks from Arch Rock that was founded in 2003 by former students
of Mr. Culler at UC Berkeley.
The full article is available at wsj.com, but requires a subscription to read it.