Raspberry Pi as a Wireless Sensor node: Performances and constraints

The main building block of Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is sensor node consisted of four basic elements: the sensor unit, processing unit, communication and power units. In this paper we propose the Raspberry Pi, cheap, flexible, fully customizable and programmable small computer board and abilities of its usage as WSN node and SensorWeb node. The Raspberry Pi brings the advantages of a PC to the domain of sensor network, what makes it the perfect platform for interfacing with wide variety of external peripherals. Comparative analysis of its key elements and performances with some of current existing wireless sensor nodes have shown that despite few disadvantages, the Raspberry Pi remains an inexpensive computer with its very successfully usage in sensor network domain and diverse range of research applications.