IEEE SENSORS 2006, EXCO, Daegu, Korea / October 22-25, 2006

Racemote: A Mobile Node for Wireless Sensor

Networks

Guangming Song, Wei Zhuang, Zhigang Wei and Aiguo Song

Robotic Sensor and Control Laboratory, Department of Instrument Science and Engineering
Southeast University
Nanjing 210096, China
mikesong@seu.edu.cn

Abstract This paper introduces Racemote, an enhanced node

that enables mobility in wireless sensor networks. Racemote
provides a novel robotic platform for experimental research in
mobile sensor networks or other distributed measurement and
control systems. The tiny mobile node is inexpensive and easy
to assemble. Each mobile node consists of a processor/radio
board, a Motor Board and a robotic base, most of which are
built from off-the-shelf components. A testbed including the
static nodes as well as the mobile node has also been created
for validating the basic mobility functions of Racemote. Results
of the demonstration project show that Racemote can greatly
enhance the functionality of the conventional static sensor
networks and it is an ideal platform for research in large-scale
mobile sensor networks and distributed robotics.

I. INTRODUCTION
There are still many research challenges in wireless
sensor networks, such as energy limitations, distributed
calibration, network repair, etc. In recent years, the
interaction of distributed robotics and wireless sensor
networks has led to the creation of mobile sensor networks.
It is considered that augmenting static sensor networks with
mobile nodes can solve many of the research challenges that
exist in static sensor networks [1]. A mobile sensor network
is composed of a distributed collection of enhanced nodes.
Each node has sensing, computation, communication and
locomotion modules [2]. Compared to the conventional static
wireless sensor networks, mobile sensor networks have more
powerful network capabilities such as self-deployment,
network repair and event tracking. Each mobile senor node is
capable of navigating autonomously or under control of
humans. Large numbers of mobile sensor nodes can
coordinate their actions through ad-hoc communication
networks.
The mobility capability will be more useful in situations
where the environment is too dangerous or inaccessible to
humans. For example, if a building is on fire or suspected of
hazardous material leak, the mobile sensor network can
rapidly self-deploy into the dangerous structure and return
Figure 1. Racemote: a mobile node for wireless sensor networks
real-time data to first responders outside. Due to the potential
usage of mobile sensor networks, great attentions have been
paid to this new technology. Some research groups have
begun to design mobile nodes for wireless senor networks
and have made some prototypes, such as Robomote,
MICAbot and CotsBots [3-5]. These tiny platforms provide
initial support for developing large-scale mobile sensor
networks and distributed robotics.
Motivated by the previous work outlined above, we also
propose a method for developing mobile nodes. Our work of
hardware design is most closely related to CotsBots
proposed by Bergbreiter and Pister [5]. But our interest here
focuses on testbed creation and Web interface design. The
prototype of the proposed mobile node which we call
Racemote is shown in Fig. 1. Racemote is an enhanced
sensor node that enables mobility in wireless sensor
networks. It provides a novel robotic platform for
experimental research in mobile sensor networks or other
distributed measurement and control systems. A testbed has
been set up for validating the basic mobility functions of
Racemote. A demonstration project has also been

This work is partially supported by NSFC Grant #6050403 1.

1-4244-0376-6/06/$20.00 }2006 IEEE 781

IEEE SENSORS 2006, EXCO, Daegu, Korea / October 22-25, 2006
Figure 3. Structural decomposition of Racemote.
implemented to enable Web-based access and control of
mobile sensor networks. Details of the design work will be
presented in Section II-IV.
II. MOBILE NODE
A. Hardware
The size of Racemote is 125mmx65mmx6Omm. This
tiny mobile node consists of a processor/radio board, a motor
board and a robotic base, most of which are built from off-
the-shelf components. The system architecture of Racemote
is shown in Fig. 2.
The processor/radio board is MICA2 Mote, the third
generation mote module used for enabling low-power
wireless sensor networks [6]. MICA2 Mote is based on the
Atmel ATmegal28L microcontroller which can be
configured to run sensor applications or radio
communication stacks simultaneously. A 51-pin expansion
connector supports Analog Inputs, Digital I/0, 12C, SPI and
UART interfaces. These interfaces make it easy to connect to
external peripherals such as sensor boards and actuator
boards. The base platform for Racemote is built from a toy
car by keeping the two motors and the wheels unchanged [7].
The motor board is another independent module that is
used for actuating the motors. Its architecture is shown in Fig.
3. It uses the Atmel ATmega48V as its own microcontroller
and communicates with MICA2 Mote over UART interface
of the 51-pin expansion connector. Two motor driver chips
provide bidirectional drive currents up to 1.5A at voltages
from 2.5V to 12V. The motor board also has a flexible
interface that enables In-System Programming of the flash
memory.
The sensor board is an optional module that varies from
application to application. Crossbow Technology, Inc. offers
a variety of sensor boards to interface with MICA family of
wireless motes. Some universities and research groups also
have designed a few compatible sensor boards that meet their
own needs. All the sensor boards available now can be used
by Racemote to support various data acquisition applications.
In order to conduct our experiments on distributed
measurement and control, a sensor board specially designed
for Racemote is being planned for development.
1-4244-0376-6/06/$20.00 }2006 IEEE
(a) (b)
Figure 2. Architecture of the motor board. (a) Block diagram. (b)
Closeup.
B. Software
The software environment for Racemote is TinyOS, an
open-source operating system designed for wireless
embedded sensor networks [8]. It features a component-
based architecture which enables rapid innovation and
implementation while minimizing code size as required by
the severe memory constraints inherent in sensor networks.
Its component library includes network protocols, distributed
services, sensor drivers, and data acquisition tools, all of
which can be used as-is or be further refined for a custom
application. Its event-driven execution model enables fine-
grained power management yet allows the scheduling
flexibility.
In our implementation, MICA2 Mote runs TinyOS-based
code from its internal flash memory while the motor board
runs an assembly routine for purpose of a better motor
control. The embedded software architecture of Racemote is
shown in Fig. 4. A Racemote communicates with other
mobile nodes or gateway by using a standard data format
defined in TinyOS, namely TOS Msg. Each TOS Msg data
packet that comes out of the mote contains several data fields,
including Destination Address field, Active Message Type
fileld, Group ID field and Action field, etc. The Action field
is interpreted as a command that will be sent to the motor
board to perform some actions, such as start, stop and move.
A Racemote application receives command messages from
the radio and interprets them. It will also forward command
messages that it receives to other motes in the network if
R.cemote Application
0 0
TinyOS Radio Stack TinyOS Radio Stack
0~~~~~~~
MOTE MOTE
. UT= ==
MOTOR BOARD
|
MOTOR BOARD
RQutine
A~umb~ Assembly Routi ne
Figure 4. The embedded software modules of Racemote. TOS_Msg is a
standard message format used by data packets transmitted between motes.
CMD is the control command sent to the motor board.
782
IEEE SENSORS 2006, EXCO, Daegu, Korea / October 22-25, 2006

We-b Server
USB
RS232/USB3 th~~~~Iternet
0

~~w
~~Router I 9'sf _~I
Ethornet r

Ethernt il
I1 S~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Clieht
(a)
Figure 6. Testbed setup for the demonstration project. (a) Block diagram. (b) View of hardware implementation.

necessary. This is accomplished by re-broadcasting the
command message once it has been processed. In this way a
so-called mesh network is formed by following a multi-hop
routing protocol.
III. TESTBED SETUP
A testbed including the static nodes as well as the mobile
node has been created for validating the basic mobility
functions of Racemote. A demonstration project called Web-
Enabled Virtual Lab (WevLab) has also been implemented
in our lab. The testbed setup is shown in Fig. 5. It builds a
distributed measurement and control system based on mobile
sensor networks. By running this project, a user can get
remote environment information and control the mobile node
over Internet.
In our implementation, a small Ethernet network is
created which consists of two PCs, a laptop and a router. One
PC serves as the host to run server applications. The other
two computers serve as the fixed client and the mobile client
respectively. The gateway between the mote layer and the
server layer is MIB5 10, a product of Crossbow Technology,
Inc. It provides an RS-232 serial programming interface and
can also function as a base station when combined with a
mote. The sensor board is MTS300, a product of Crossbow
Technology, Inc. The MTS300 is a flexible sensor board
with a variety of sensing modalities. These modalities

Figure 5. A graphic user interface for Racemote.

1-4244-0376-6/06/$20.00 }2006 IEEE 783

IEEE SENSORS 2006, EXCO, Daegu, Korea / October 22-25, 2006
a.)
14
.A ........... ....
?-00 14-00 MIN 1 U8
..
...
.. ...........is. .
20,00 20 00 0
. I .
Figure 7. Monitoring results of the outdoor environment in 24 hours. (a)
Temperature. (b) Light.
include Light, Temperature, Acoustic and Sounder.
A Java applet serves as the graphic user interface to
remotely access the mobile sensor network, as shown in Fig.
6. Any Java-enabled Web browsers, such as Internet
Explorer or Netscape, can serve as containers to display the
Web page and to run the applet. The applet consists of
several panels for remote users to carry out specific
operations such as sending control commands, displaying the
measurement results and receiving the video stream.
IV.
We have performed remote control experiments in our
Ethernet network. Experimental results show that Racemote
is capable of simple planar motions and is easy to be
controlled through the Web-enabled graphic user interface.
By watching live video of the environment, we are able to
guide Racemote to go forward and backward. Since this is
only a demonstration project, speed control and steering
1-4244-0376-6/06/$20.00
control are not available in the current version of the Web
interface.
Some tests were also carried out to evaluate the stability
of our demonstration project. The sensor nodes were
deployed outside our lab room to get the environmental
information. The temperature data and the light data were
collected and sent to the Web interface at intervals of 60
seconds. The tests continued for 24 hours and those data
were stored and visualized at the client side in real time. The
experimental results of one sensor node can be seen in Fig. 7.
The outdoor temperature and light changes during a day are
displayed in these figures.
.. .... . ...... ............. ..I.......... .....i....
NM 06.00O08
X4
..... ......
V. CONCLUSION
Tme(houe) We have presented Racemote, a mobile node for wireless
(a) sensor networks. Experimental results of the demonstration
project show that Racemote successfully brings mobility to
the static sensor networks and the testbed is stable enough to
perform longtime monitoring tasks. The next step in this
research will be to design and validate some distributed
control algorithms for mobile sensor networks. For this
purpose, more mobile nodes are now being developed to
form a new testbed.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The research reported in this paper was carried out at the
Robotic Sensor and Control Lab, Department of Instrument
Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing,
Jiangsu, China.
The authors thank all the members of the Robotic Sensor
Tine(hour) and Control Lab for their great supports.
(b)
REFERENCES
[1] S. Poduri and G. S. Sukhatme, "Constrained Coverage for Mobile
Sensor Networks," in IEEE International Conference on Robotics and
Automation, New Orleans, LA, USA, 2004, pp. 165-171.
[2] I. F. Akyildiz and I. H. Kasimoglu, "Wireless Sensor and Actor
Networks: Research Challenges," Ad Hoc Networks Journal, vol. 2,
no. 4, pp. 351-367, 2004.
[3] Gabriel T. Sibley, Mohammad H. Rahimi and Gaurav S. Sukhatme,
"Robomote: A Tiny Mobile Robot Platform for Large-Scale Sensor
Networks", in IEEE International Conference on Robotics and
Automation, Washington DC, USA, Sep 2002, pp. 1143-1148.
[4] M.B. McMickell, B. Goodwine and L.A. Montestruque, "MICAbot: a
robotic platform for large-scale distributed robotics," in IEEE
International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Taipei,
EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
Taiwan, Sep 2003, pp. 1600-1605.
[5] S. Bergbreiter and K.S.J. Pister, "CotsBots: an off-the-shelf platform
for distributed robotics," in IEEE/RSJ International Conference on
Intelligent Robots and Systems, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 2003, pp.
1632 - 1637.
[6] Crossbow Technology, Inc. Wireless Sensor Networks [Online].
Available: http://www.xbow.com.
[7] GuangDong Auldey Toy Industry Ltd. Model Cars [Online].
Available: http://www.auldey.com
[8] TinyOS Community Forum. An open-source OS for the networked
sensor regime [Online]. Available: http://www.tinyos.net.
}2006 IEEE 784