Internet of Things Implementation with Nodes Based on Low-Power Microcontroller MSP430

Internet of Things (IoT) is a term used to describe a collection of technologies enabling interconnection of the digital with the physical world. This work presents an IoT implementation consisting of a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), where the sensor nodes collect information about the temperature of the surrounding environment and their battery's voltage. The collected information is then transmitted to a central device to be stored and processed. This information is presented to the user through a web page. In this application the user can interact with the nodes by modifying some parameters at runtime. To carry out the described scenario, a Raspberry Pi and three Zolertia Z1 sensor nodes were used. The Z1 sensor nodes feature a low power microcontroller MSP430F2617. Contiki was used as the operating system for the sensor nodes. Raspberry Pi plays the role of a border router that allows communication between the WSN and the IP external network. To send the information from the nodes, four programs have been developed that allow nodes to send information using UDP and TCP as transport protocol. These programs also consider an energy consumption reduction by turning the radio interface on only when it is required, which means to transmit the readings or to receive the parameters. To receive the information sent from the nodes, an UDP server and a TCP server were developed. Additionally, the web pages that allow to display the collected information and the parameters were developed. Finally an energy consumption evaluation is done using the developed programs.