Telos: enabling ultra-low power wireless research

TLDR

Telos is the latest UC Berkeley mote designed to enable wireless sensor network research, built from scratch using lessons from earlier generations. The authors present Telos, an ultra‑low‑power wireless sensor module designed to enable research and experimentation with minimal power consumption, ease of use, and enhanced robustness. The mote is built from scratch, selecting and integrating hardware components such as a Texas Instruments MSP430 microcontroller, Chipcon IEEE 802.15.4 radio, and USB to meet the design goals. Telos consumes about one‑tenth the power of earlier motes while delivering higher performance and throughput, and it removes the need for separate programming and support boards, enabling experimentation in labs, testbeds, and deployments.

Abstract

We present Telos, an ultra low power wireless sensor module ("mote") for research and experimentation. Telos is the latest in a line of motes developed by UC Berkeley to enable wireless sensor network (WSN) research. It is a new mote design built from scratch based on experiences with previous mote generations. Telos' new design consists of three major goals to enable experimentation: minimal power consumption, easy to use, and increased software and hardware robustness. We discuss how hardware components are selected and integrated in order to achieve these goals. Using a Texas Instruments MSP430 microcontroller, Chipcon IEEE 802.15.4-compliant radio, and USB, Telos' power profile is almost one-tenth the consumption of previous mote platforms while providing greater performance and throughput. It eliminates programming and support boards, while enabling experimentation with WSNs in both lab, testbed, and deployment settings.