An implementation of a wireless sensor network based on IEEE 1451.0 and 1451.5–6LoWPAN standards

This paper describes an implementation of the IEEE 1451.0 and 1451.5 standards for smart transducers. The implementation, developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), uses Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) over Low power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPAN) hardware to demonstrate the capabilities of the 1451 family of standards. The network consists of a Network Capable Application Processor (NCAP), implemented in Java, working with five Wireless Transducer Interface Module (WTIM) nodes. In operation, the NCAP communicates with WTIMs via the 1451.0 and 1451.5 interfaces over 802.15.4 using 6LoWPAN to implement User Datagram Protocol (UDP) IPv6 architecture. In this paper, case studies demonstrate the implementation of WTIM announcements, the client-server ability to read both binary and text-based Transducer Electronic Data Sheet (TEDS), the ability to read sensor data, and an alert function. This work demonstrates some possibilities and features a low-power wireless network can provide when using the IEEE 1451.0 and 1451.5 standards.