Oracle SunSPOTs

Sun SPOTs are embedded microprocessors running Java. Various facilities like sensors, radio communication, TCP and HTTP connections, mesh networking, multi-hop communication are available. Two different types of SPOTs are free range SPOT and basestation. They are both physically different in several aspects some of them being that free range are rechargable battery operated and use the MIDlet extension, has led displays; whereas the basestation does not have any battery and so has to be connected through USB, also it does not have leds and does not use the MIDlet extension. The basestation acts as a communication means between the host application and the free range spot. Both the types of sunSPOTs work on Squawk Java Virtual Machine, which acts both as an OS and as software application platform.

For our project purpose we are mainly concerned with the wireless radio, that uses an integrated radio transceiver, CC2420 which is 802.15.4 compliant. It operates in the range of 2.4GHz to 2.4835GHz ISM unlicensed bands, which gives 16 different channels ranging from 11 to 26 to work with. The output power ranges from 0dBm to -25dBm. Received Signal Strength Indication(RSSI) measurement with 100dB sensitivity is available.


Sun SPOTs

For more information about the SunSPOTs, available demos and packages, refer to the following links.
1. Official SunSPOT website
2. SunSPOT API specification V4.0



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