Libelium, a wireless sensor company, has launched the Waspmote, an open source ZigBee sensor platform. The line features seven different models of communication radios with a minimum consumption (0.7uA in the Hibernate mode).
Libelium says the Waspmote can achieve long range links: 7km at 2.4GHz, 24km at 900MHz and 40km at 868MHz. Virtually any remote environment can be monitorized. It’s powered with a lithium battery which can be recharged through a dedicated socket for a solar panel.
Three sensor boards have been developed to be connected to Waspmote:
- Gases: CO, CO2, CH4, SH2, NH3,…
- Events: weight, luminosity, tilt, vibration, PIR, liquid level…
- Protyping: ready to integrate new sensors, includes ADC, pad area, amplification stages…
A 3 axis accelerometer has been integrated in the same board to get the maximum precision and stability in both ranges (+-2g, +-6g), which lets Waspmote to control in real time any kind of motion or mobility event.
The modular architecture includes:
- GPS: latitude, longitude, altitude, speed,…
- GPRS: sms’s, calls, TCP/UDP sockets,…
- SD card: up to 2GB of memory
A complete programming API is available. Both the Waspmote API and the compiler are open source.
