Sensor messaging protocol handler and adapter interfaces implementation in microcontroller development case

Abstract

Nowadays technologies such as the wireless connectivity, embedded devices and MEMS provide a possibility to build tiny compact devices which have sensing, computing and networking capabilities. The sensors connected to the embedded devices give new possibilities and environments for collecting sensor data and passing it to the networks or other devices. Wireless sensor node technology, as the name suggest, is purposely designed to collect sensor data from the sensor network cluster(s) or a single sensor. “The Internet of Things” defines the systems that consist of networks and networks of sensors, actuators, and smart objects which are interconnected together allowing communication with one another; some of which have decision making capabilities.

The wireless sensor networks and the Internet of Things provide several data centric protocols to access sensor data of sensor networks and the embedded devices. Data centric protocols are based on two paradigms request-response and publish-subscribe. The Publish and subscribe is quite popular in today’s solution because the same sensor data can be routed and published to several final processing units or the devices which are connected to the router gateways.

Sensor communication protocol with the connectivity bus adapter interfaces provides an easy and simple way to access sensor register over different kinds of connectivity. Protocol can be integrated to the embedded device which then provides the message passing with two connectivity adapter interfaces. A lower level connectivity interface provides a possibility to interact with the sensor via I2C of SPI buses. A high level interface provides a connection to and from the devices over the wired or wireless connections.