Intel Motes: Advanced Sensor Network Platforms and Applications

Traditional Sensor Network nodes (also called “motes”) have been built around low-end 8-bit microcontrollers and simple single channel radios. These platforms are very resource constrained which limits their application to more demanding tasks. These limitations were imposed by constraints on cost, power consumption and physical size. Intel Motes represent a new class of Sensor Network platforms that are motivated by several new design goals: increased CPU performance and memory capacity, improved radio bandwidth and reliability, as well as cost-effectiveness. We describe details of the new platform architectures as well as practical experiences with the new motes regarding CPU and radio performance, networking algorithms, and battery life.