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SmartMesh IP Easy Start
Guide for the Embedded
Manager
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Table of Contents
1 Introduction _____________________________________________________________________________________ 3
1.1 Revision History _____________________________________________________________________________ 4
2 Setup __________________________________________________________________________________________ 5
3 Basic Steps _____________________________________________________________________________________ 7
3.1 Step 1: Form a Wireless Mesh Network ___________________________________________________________ 7
3.2 Step 2: Connect Your PC to the Manager __________________________________________________________ 7
3.3 Step 3: Bring Up Manager CLI __________________________________________________________________ 8
3.4 Ping a Mote ________________________________________________________________________________ 9
3.5 That's It! ___________________________________________________________________________________ 9
3.6 Next Steps - Steps In a Design _________________________________________________________________ 10
3.7 Troubleshooting ____________________________________________________________________________ 11
4 References ____________________________________________________________________________________ 14
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1 Introduction
The purpose of this document is to provide a quick and easy out-of-the-box experience with the .SmartMesh IP Starter Kit
You will use the components highlighted in gray:
A SmartMesh starter kit including a manager and one or more motes
A terminal application to communicate with the manager's command line interface (CLI)
An FTDI driver for converting USB connections to virtual COM ports
Figure 1: SmartMesh Demonstration Software Components
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1.1 Revision History
Revision Date Description
1 03/18/2013 Initial Release
2 07/26/2013 Added DC9021A Kit
3 10/22/2013 Clarification of reset requirements, other minor corrections
4 04/04/2014 Numerous small clarifications
5 10/24/2014 Added DC9004A
6 04/22/2015 Minor corrections
7 12/03/2015 Added DC2274A; simplified content; renamed guide to focus on embedded manager
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2 Setup
Figure 2 shows the Evaluation Kit including a SmartMesh IP Manager (with interface board), five Eterna motes, and an
additional interface board. There are different manager/mote combinations available, as shown in Table 1.
Figure 2: SmartMesh Evaluation Kit
KIt Mote Manager Notes
DC9000A DC9003A-B DC9001A* Eval/Dev Kit with 32 mote manager (discontinued)
DC9000B DC9003A-B DC9001B* or
DC2274A-A
Eval/Dev kit with 100 mote manager
DC9021A DC9018A-B DC9020A* or
DC2274A-A
RF Certified Eval/Dev kit with 100 mote manager
Table 1 - Kit configurations
*Orderable part number includes . Manager boards ( sticker) may be marked with a different sub-componentDC9006 yellow
part number (e.g. DC9011A) than the value in Table 1.
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1) The interface boards for both the manager and mote are identical ( ).DC9006
2) The DC2274A-A manager does not come with a DC9006 interface board. It connects directly via USB.
Standard kit motes ship with chip antennas. RF Certified devices are available for order individually with MMCX
connectors:
Mote - DC9018B-B (MMCX connector)
Manager - DC9020B (MMCX connector)
The DC2274A-A manager has an external removable RPSMA antenna.
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1.
2.
3.
3 Basic Steps
There are three steps to demonstrate the capabilities of the kit:
Form a wireless mesh network - just power everything on, and a network will form
Get manager COM ports working on two USB ports on your PC
Bring up the manager command line interface - this will allow you to see the network on the manager
Once you've done these three steps you'll perform one exercise - you'll ping a mote to see its temperature and battery voltage.
The CLI is intended for human interaction with a mote or manager, e.g. during development, or for interactive
troubleshooting. The API is intended for machine-to-machine communications, e.g. a host program talking to the
manager or a sensor processor talking to the mote.
3.1 Step 1: Form a Wireless Mesh Network
Even though much of the effort associated with this guide involves using the PC, it is important to point out that your PC has
nothing to do with forming a wireless mesh network. To illustrate this, power on the manager using the slide switch (labeled
POWER) in the lower right corner. The Blue LED (labeled INDICATOR_0) will light to indicate that the manager is on and is
attempting to form a network by sending out advertisements.
Power on one mote, again using the slide switch. Watch the two green LEDs. One will blink slowly, indicating the mote is
searching for the network. When that green LED changes from blinking to solid, that means the mote has sent a join request.
When the second green LED turns on, the mote has joined.
Power on all the remaining motes, and within one or two minutes you will have a complete wireless mesh network running.
The rest of the steps we go through will provide ways to interact with that mesh network.
3.2 Step 2: Connect Your PC to the Manager
You will now connect the PC to the manager through a serial (COM) port.
Connect the manager assembly that was supplied with your kit, (DC9001B, DC9020A, or DC2274A-A) into one of your PC
USB ports. Note which USB port you are using. To make keeping track of which COM port is used to connect software clients,
you should consider this your "manager port" for all future use with this PC.
Four virtual COM ports should automatically be added. These can be viewed using the Windows Device Manager (Control
Panel -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager -> Ports). Note the four COM port numbers - for example, they may be
"COM7", "COM8", "COM9" and "COM10". You will be using the (COM9) for CLI and the (COM10) for the APIthird fourth
connection. Other OSes will label these ports /dev/ttyUSBx (Linux) or /dev/tty.usbserial-xxxx (OS X).
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Most modern OSes come with FTDI drivers pre-installed, but you may have to install them if this doesn't happen
automatically. Refer to the for detailed instructions on how to install FTDI drivers.SmartMesh IP Tools Guide
It has been observed in some installations under Windows 7 that the serial ports do not enumerate in order, and the
CLI and API ports may not be the 3rd and 4th ports, respectively. If this occurs, you will need to test each port
using APIExplorer (in the SmartMesh SDK) to find the API port, and use a terminal program to find the CLI port.
3.3 Step 3: Bring Up Manager CLI
The CLI allows you to type commands from a PC to interact with the manager. Interacting with the CLI requires no software
installation on the PC if you are running Windows XP, as it comes with the Hyperterminal program (Start -> All Programs ->
Accessories -> Communication). If you are running Windows 7, you will need to download a serial terminal client (such as
or PuTTY). Note that the boards must be powered on (slide switch labeled Power) to access CLI.TeraTerm
To connect to the manager CLI open the terminal client program. Connect to the third COM port (e.g. COM 9 from step 2) that
was added when you plugged in the manager. The COM port settings are:
9600 bits per second (sometimes listed as bps or baud)
8 data bits
No parity
1 stop bit
No flow control
Save this connection profile (in Hyperterm or TeraTerm) so that you can use it in future
" "
Hit enter a few times and you should see a > prompt character. Type 'help' to see a list of commands:
> help
help <command>
Commands:
login
logout
Next login as 'user' by typing the command:
> login user
Use the command (this is short for "show motes") to obtain the list of connected motes:sm
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> sm
MAC MoteId State Nbrs Links Joins Age StateTime
00-17-0D-00-00-38-0E-4D 1 Oper 4 20 1 0 0-05:31:44
00-17-0D-00-00-38-0E-4E 2 Oper 5 16 1 25 0-05:30:40
00-17-0D-00-00-38-0E-CD 3 Oper 2 10 1 7 0-05:29:29
00-17-0D-00-00-38-0E-77 4 Oper 3 11 1 25 0-04:55:25
00-17-0D-00-00-38-0E-4C 5 Oper 2 10 1 41 0-04:55:18
00-17-0D-00-00-38-0E-78 6 Oper 2 10 1 18 0-04:53:37
Number of motes (max 17): Total 6, Live 6, Joining 0
3.4 Ping a Mote
You can interact with your motes via the manager CLI. Type the following command to send a "ping" to a mote. The mote will
respond with battery voltage (in mV) and temperature (in °C) and the manager will add a round-trip time when printing the
response. You ping a mote using its mote ID, not its MAC Address.
> ping 2
Sending ping request to mote 2
> Ping response from mote 2, time= 540 msec v=3542 t=27
Note that this is an internal mote command, not an ICMPv6 Echo request.
3.5 That's It!
You've successfully set up a network and interacted with the manager and a mote. There are many other things you can do
with the manager CLI, and typing 'help' after logging in reveals the full CLI command set. See the SmartMesh IP Manager CLI
for details. Many of the involve interacting with the manager CLI.Guide SmartMesh IP Application Notes
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3.6 Next Steps - Steps In a Design
With the starter kit, hardware design and software design may be done separately.
For Software design:
The application note "Data Publishing for SmartMesh IP" walks through the steps needed to use the mote APIs to join
a network and send data. The mote needs to be placed into mode via its CLI in order to activate the API -slave
evaluation kit motes ship in demo mode. See the " master Master vs. Slave" section of the SmartMesh IP User's Guide
for details on changing the mode
The defines basic network terms and concepts, and discusses the use of APIs at a highSmartMesh IP User's Guide
level
At a minimum, a mote application needs to:
Configure any parameters needed prior to join (such as )
joindutycyle
Use the API to cause a mote to begin searching for a network
join
Monitor the mote state to see when it is ready to accept data
Open a socket and bind a UDP port to it
Request services in order to publish data
The covers other commands to configure the moteSmartMesh IP Mote API Guide
The covers using the human interface to observe mote activitySmartMesh IP Mote CLI Guide
At a minimum, a host application connected to the manager needs to:
Configure any parameters needed prior to join (such as )
networkID
Subscribe to notifications to observe mote status and collect data
The covers other commands to configure the manager, e.g. configureSmartMesh IP Manager API Guide
security (use of ACL), or collect detailed statistics from Health Report notifications
The covers using the human interface to observe manager activitySmartMesh IP Manager CLI Guide
(including traces of mote state or data)
Some of the Advanced software topics covered in the SmartMesh IP User's Guide, , andSmartMesh IP Tools Guide
SmartMesh IP Application Notes include:
Over-the-Air-Programming
Using the TestRadio API commands for top-level assembly testing
Use of the Serial Multiplexer to support concurrent manager clients
Using a low-power border router for internet connectivity
For Hardware design:
Select a hardware platform - modularly certified or chip level?
The hardware integration guides (see the for links to specific guides) cover the importantSmartMesh IP webpage
considerations for robust hardware development
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3.7 Troubleshooting
1. For kits containing a DC9003-based manager, the board with the yellow sticker is the manager. Motes have a white sticker.
The interface boards ( ) for both manager and mote are the same. A DC2274A-A has a built-in USB connector and doesDC9006
not require an interface board.
2. If you are consistent with which USB port you plug the mote and manager into, the COM port assignments should remain
consistent. Mark the physical USB ports on your machine for manager and mote usage respectively and then do not change or
mix their usage. Moving to a new USB port will create a new set of virtual COM ports.
3. Using the Windows , make sure that the baud rate is set to 115,200 for the API COM ports. Double-clickDevice Manager
the port and select the "Port Settings" tab. As an example, see Figure 3:
COM 7-10 are for the manager: COM10 is for API
COM 11-14 are for the mote: COM14 is for API
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Figure 3: Device Manager (see step 2) Example
The baud rate for the manager and mote CLI will be set in your terminal program (e.g. Hyperterminal or TeraTerm).
4. By default, an evaluation kit mote joins automatically when it boots since it is in the demo mode. If you set a motemaster
to be in mode, the status LEDs don't turn on which you may mistake for a dead board/battery. In mode, the API isslave slave
enabled and a command must be given to have a mote join a network.
join
5. Status LED description:
Status 0 Status 1 Mote State
Blinking Off The mote is searching for the network
On Off The mote has found the network and is attempting to join
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On On The mote has joined the network and is operational
7. Keep the connected when you connect a mote to your PC to see the new COM port assignments for itsDevice Manager
CLI and API.
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4 References
The following documents are available for the SmartMesh IP network:
Getting Started with a Starter Kit
- walks you through basic installation and a few tests to make sure your network isSmartMesh IP Easy Start Guide
working
- the Installation section contains instructions for installing the serial drivers and exampleSmartMesh IP Tools Guide
programs used in the Easy Start Guide and other tutorials.
User's Guide
- describes network concepts, and discusses how to drive mote and manager APIs toSmartMesh IP User's Guide
perform specific tasks, e.g. to send data or collect statistics. This document provides context for the API guides.
Interfaces for Interaction with a Device
- used for human interaction with a Manager (e.g. during development of a client,SmartMesh IP Manager CLI Guide
or for troubleshooting). This document covers connecting to the CLI and its command set.
- used for programmatic interaction with a manager. This document coversSmartMesh IP Manager API Guide
connecting to the API and its command set.
- used for human interaction with a mote (e.g. during development of a sensorSmartMesh IP Mote CLI Guide
application, or for troubleshooting). This document covers connecting to the CLI and its command set.
- used for programmatic interaction with a mote. This document covers connecting toSmartMesh IP Mote API Guide
the API and its command set.
Software Development Tools
- describes the various evaluation and development support tools included in the SmartMesh IP Tools Guide
, including tools for exercising mote and manager APIs and visualizing the network.SmartMesh SDK
Application Notes
- Cover a wide range of topics specific to SmartMesh IP networks and topics thatSmartMesh IP Application Notes
apply to SmartMesh networks in general.
Documents Useful When Starting a New Design
The Datasheet for the , or one of the based on it.LTC5800-IPM SoC modules
The Datasheet for the , or one of the based on it.LTC5800-IPR SoC embedded managers
A for the mote/manager SoC or - this discusses best practices for integrating theHardware Integration Guide module
SoC or module into your design.
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A for the embedded manager - this discusses best practices for integrating the embeddedHardware Integration Guide
manager into your design.
A - For SoC motes and Managers. Discusses how to set default IO configuration andBoard Specific Integration Guide
crystal calibration information via a "fuse table".
- contains an SoC design checklist, antenna selection guide, etc.Hardware Integration Application Notes
The - a guide to the Programmer Board and ESP software used to load firmware on aESP Programmer Guide DC9010
device.
ESP software - used to program firmware images onto a mote or module.
Fuse Table software - used to construct the fuse table as discussed in the .Board Specific Configuration Guide
Other Useful Documents
A glossary of wireless networking terms used in SmartMesh documentation can be found in the SmartMesh IP User's
Guide
A list of Frequently Asked Questions
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are trademarks of Dust Networks, Inc. The Dust Networks logo, Dust, DustEterna, Mote-on-Chip, and SmartMesh IP,
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