On the Internet of Things

For the past 6 weeks I have been a beta user of a new 6LoWPAN-based home energy pilot system from the UbiCity project called UBI-AMI (Ubiquitous Automatic Metering Infrastructure). I now have what is likely the world’s first 6LoWPAN controlled Christmas tree – turned on and off from a handy web interface. Nerdy, I know! This tops off lots of other useful things like controlling the car heater and fixing an energy guzzling freezer. More about UBI-AMI in 2010…

Merry Christmas to everyone!

6LoWPAN controlled Christmas tree

Today I released our 6LoWPAN lecture slides on 6lowpan.net:

“The companion lecture slides for 6LoWPAN: The Wireless Embedded Internet have now been released on The Book page of 6lowpan.net. This first part of the book’s course material includes a suggested course syllabus, and 115 of lecture slides in both PowerPoint and PDF formats. This overview of the book is a good tool for lecturers, students and professionals alike. The slides have been released under a creative commons by-nc-sa license to encourage re-use. The companion exercise slides for Contiki are planned for release in the near future.”

Links to the syllabus and lecture slides:

6LoWPAN Book Course Syllabus (PDF)
6LoWPAN Book Lecture Slides (PPT)
6LoWPAN Book Lecture Slides (PDF)

There is a new post on http://6lowpan.net about an upcoming book seminar talk I will be giving Dec 8th in Finland, along with 6LoWPAN book courses/tutorials that I currently plan on teaching in 2010.

Our 6LoWPAN book has now been released by Wiley. Last week we received the very first copies directly in Japan while at IETF-76. Pre-orders should start arriving any time now to people. At least we are very pleased with the result, so happy reading! For those who would like a preview an excerpt is available on-line:

“6LoWPAN: The Wireless Embedded Internet” – Chapter 1

I will be releasing the book’s companion course slides and exercises very soon at http://6lowpan.net.

A new white paper is now available from the IPSO Alliance which I wrote together with Samita Chakrabarti from IP Infusion. For someone wanting to understand the Neighbor Discovery solution being developed for use in 6LoWPAN networks this is the best place to start:

“6LoWPAN Neighbor Discovery: A High-level Overview”

The course slides for our upcoming 6LoWAN book will be avialable soon on 6lowpan.net, which include tutorial slides about 6LoWPAN Neighbor Discovery. Or see a recent tutorial I gave on 6LoWPAN at the SenZations summer school.

For those interested in all the details, see the document in progress in the IETF 6lowpan working group. Here is a link to the latest version of the Internet Draft (released two weeks ago): draft-ietf-6lowpan-nd-05

Enjoy!

I attended the 75th Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) meeting in Stockholm last week. Here is some of the latest news from IETF activities related to the Internet of Things:

6LoWPAN - The 6lowpan working group is currently moving four Internet-Drafts towards last call in the standards track (Improved Header Compression, 6LoWPAN Neighbor Discovery) and informational track (Use Cases, Routing Requirements). I presented the latest ND draft, which has good consensus and will be going through a round of technical improvements within 2 weeks. Next the WG is looking to re-charter to continue on subjects such as security, MIBs etc.

ROLL – The roll working group presented the RPL (pronounced “ripple”) routing protocol draft, which has been accepted as an official working group document today. This will be the basis for routing over low-power and lossy networks including 6LoWPAN, which still needs lots of contribution to reach a full solution.

New 6lowapp effort - We held a very successful meeting about applications in resource-constrained networks. About 60-70 people attended presentations from Carsten Bormann, Don Sturek (from Pacific Gas & Electric and ZigBee/IP) along with a set of 2-minute stand-ups. The presentation is available here. The feedback from IETF Area Directors was that there is obvious support, motivation and requirements (and that we are in a hurry) – so start working! A 6lowapp mailing list and wiki page will be coming soon, keep tuned.

There was a great presence at the IETF from IPSO members, who held several meetings during the same week. Thanks to the move of ZigBee and the energy industry towards all-IP smart energy we say many new participants in Stockholm. It is really positive to see the collaboration between the IETF, IPSO, ZigBee and Utilities in this area.

We have kicked off a new effort at the IETF called 6LowApp. The goal is to develop application protocols for resource-constrained embedded devices and networks. Now that 6LoWPAN and ROLL are providing a framework for wireless embedded IP networking, the next fronteir is suitable application protocols for discovery, management and data transfer.

IETF 75 (Stockholm) 6LowApp Wiki

Problem Statement Internet-Draft

Please show your support and contibute your ideas for 6LowApp. In Stockholm there will be an informal Bar BOF anyone can attend to show interest and discuss ideas, and you can always show your support on the mailing lists. Keep tuned here, as the process moves forward I’ll keep writing on our progress.

Last week we completed the “6LoWPAN: The Wireless Embedded Internet” book manuscript, which is now in production at Wiley. Shipping is expected in November 2009. I know there is a huge need for more tutorial and educational material about 6LoWPAN. We will do our best to launch the web-site for the book including tutorial and course material already in September. It is now officially available on Wiley’s home page:

6LoWPAN: The Wireless Embedded Internet

We are completing the world’s first book all about 6LoWPAN for John Wiley & Sons together with Carsten Bormann, co-chair of the 6lowpan working group. Here is a sneak preview.

The book will be announced officially in June by Wiley, and is expected to start shipping to readers this December. It gives the complete picture of 6LoWPAN technology all in one place, including deployment examples and implementation aspects. It is aimed at experts in the field, engineering students and lecturers. An accompanying web-site will be launched this fall including course material, Contiki coding exercises, an author blog and other 6LoWPAN information.

Example book figure

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. The 6LoWPAN Format
3. Bootstrapping and Commissioning
4. Mobility and Routing
5. Application Protocols
6. Implementation Issues
7. Deployment Examples
8. Conclusion

A – IPv6 Reference
B – IEEE 802.15.4 Reference

Sensinode recently announced support for the next-generation CC2530 radio chip from Texas Instruments.

http://www.sensinode.com/EN/news/sensinode-ltd.-targets-smart-grid-applications.html

This new chip is an exciting development on the SoC front, and compliments the general industry trend towards SoC radio technology. Our Sensinode team is excited about this new chip which gives us much better performance in terms of receiver sensitivity and transmit power (= better range). In addition the processor core has several improvements over the CC2430. The new chip has a huge amount of flash now at 250 kB. Although this may be needed by ZigBee Pro stacks, which are very complex, Sensinode’s NanoStack 2.0 needs only the 64 kB version of the chip. As the CC2530 is available in 128kB, 64kB and 32kB versions – that is a direct cost savings.

The transaction to a new chip generation takes a long time – and the CC2530 is only sampling now. I hope to see Sensinode CC2530-based products late this year. As this is fully compatible with our current 6LoWPAN network products based on the current CC2430 – this transition is a smooth one.

This compliments Sensinode’s earlier announcement for NanoStack 2.0 support for the TI Sub-GHz CC1110 chip, which shows how flexible 6LoWPAN is over various radio technologies. At only 32 kB of ROM and 4 kB or RAM, it also is also shows how small a complete wireless IPv6 stack can get. Sub-Ghz 6LoWPAN networks are extremely interesting in terms incredible range and the avoidance of 2.4GHz interference. In the Smart Metering market, Sub-GHz 6LoWPAN is receiving tremendous interest. New Sub-GHz versions of Sensinode products will be available already 3Q-2009.