Our Project
This post is to clarify team SkyenLab’s scope for satisfying the senior design class requirements and Nordic Semiconductor requirements during the first semester (Aug. 2015 - Dec. 2015) of the teams senior design class. See SkyenLab’s profile for further understanding.
It should be noted to the reader that our project scope changed during the month of December. When we began this class in August, we knew that we would be working on Nordics mesh network solutions but we did not fully understand how we were going to implement Nordics mesh solutions into our senior design project to satisfying the class requirements. None of us had really heard of Nordic Semiconductors before the class or worked with mesh networks for that matter, so we had little understanding of the nRF chipset, its capabilities, or mesh topologies.
One dilemma in the mesh solution brought to our attention by Nordic was to maintain a network with low power consumption with high bandwidth (many communicating devices). During the first semester, our first thoughts were to construct our own scalable mesh network directed towards home automation using Nordic Semiconductors mesh solutions. We wanted to create mesh devices that were capable of interfacing many different devices often found in a home network. Our first idea was to create a high power (hi-p) module and a low power (lo-p) module. The hi-p module would be geared more towards communicating with data intense devices such as security cameras, landscaping maintenance, etc. The hi-p module also acted as our networks internet gateway unit, capable of relaying network information to the cloud. The lo-p modules were outfitted with only Bluetooth communication protocols and would interface with less data intense devices.
We outlined a plan of starting small by making a network with only a few devices. We figured that once we established a basic network we would be able to implement a larger network with more devices in an attempt to set ourselves up for resolving a low power, high bandwidth network. As the first semester carried out, we started understanding more of the common issues with mesh networking and some of the idiosyncrasies within Nordic software and hardware components. There was a steep learning curve at first in understanding Nordics multilayer programming scheme between the hardware, softdevice, and application layers. Nordic provided us with some of their nRF5 Software Development Kits (SDK) for the nRF51, which was the primary chipset we decided to use in our network devices. The SDKs proved to be useful for the senior design class, as we were able to provide proof of concept models of basic functionalities within the network.
By the end of the first semester, we realized we were trying to accomplish too many things at once, so we needed to alter our scope to something more manageable and focus more on fewer issues. We decided to drop the hi-p/lo-p modules and just develop one PCB with both functionalities. Instead of making a general mesh device capable of interfacing a range of devices, we decided to focus less on scalability and more on having our mesh device communicate with only a handful of home automation devices such as a smart lighting system, air quality control, and a water regulation system. We needed to maintain the low power profile, but instead of resolving high bandwidth issues, we focused on developing a more power efficient mesh topology.
Another blog will be published to clarify our current (second semester, Jan. 2016-May 2016) scope and development.