Jennic logistics reference design

Jennic, a manufacturer of 32-bit wireless microcontrollers, has released its logistics reference design, providing a platform for use in monitoring and tracking goods in transport.

The platform allows battery-powered, time-synchronised sleeping wireless sensor networks to be evaluated for logistics applications.

Sensors in the network periodically communicate environment data such as temperature to a central controller which communicates with a back-office system to provide real-time transport data to logistics personnel and for auditing purposes.

The device includes: ultra-low power wireless creates ‘intelligent’ sensor network for transport applications; platform to serve rapid development; Sleeping Beacon Technology maximises battery lifetime of sensor nodes; IEEE802.15.4 standards-based solution to serve a global market.

The design is provided as two packages, to enable first evaluation, followed by development and customisation. The evaluation package is designed to allow the benefits of the ultra-low power wireless solution to be rapidly assessed with use of the company’s standard evaluation kit and a PC for the back-office GUI.

The Windows-based GUI displays real-time data relating to the sensor network, including node temperature, battery voltage and RF channel. It also allows the frequency agility features of the solution to be evaluated, through the effects of RF interference and channel blacklisting.

The developer package is supplied as a drop-in application, along with project files and application source code. Provision of source code ensures developers can access right into the heart of the solution, to perform customisations; typically the integration of a GPRS/GSM modem link to the back-office.

At the heart of the design is the company’s IEEE802.15.4 standards-based wireless microcontroller operating in the 2.4 GHz ISM band.