Computing stuff tied to the physical world

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Let's pick a few more names

In Hardware, Software on Mar 20, 2009 at 00:01

Not to worry: I’m not going to go crazy on the Jee<blah> naming used so far…

But I do need to give the different pieces some name. To be able to refer to them in these posts, but more importantly as names for the software for all this. I also need to introduce a basic structure (and some limits).

Picture 1.png

Here goes:

  • A JeeNode is this ATmega-with-4-ports-and-RFM12B thing. There may be lots of JeeNodes for various purposes. They can communicate with each other via wireless.
  • I use the Ports and RF12 libraries with JeeNodes, although this is not a hard requirement – both the JeeNodes and the libraries can be used in numerous other ways.
  • Each JeeNode has a letter ‘A’ to ‘Z’ assigned to it as node ID. Nodes are usually given a unique ID to avoid mixups, but this is not strictly required.
  • There can be up to 250 separate groups of JeeNodes. Nodes can only communicate with other nodes in the same group. Gateways between groups could be implemented later, if needed.
  • Most nodes will be pulse JeeNodes, i.e. running a specific piece of software called – you guessed it – “pulse”, which continuously monitors some attached sensors and reports the readings via wireless.
  • The JeeHub is either a JeeNode by itself connected to a Mac, Windows, or Linux PC via USB, or a JeeNode connected to Ethernet via a small dedicated Linux module.
  • This JeeNode-as-part-of-a-JeeHub is called the central node from now on. It runs a specific software configuration, also called “central”. There should always be exactly one central node.
  • The software running on the Mac, Windows, or Linux machine(s) is called the server from now on (how original, eh?). It consists of a system-dependent executable runtime called JeeMon plus the code and data for the application itself.

It probably doesn’t hurt to reiterate that “JeeNode” and “JeeHub” are hardware, whereas “JeeMon” and the Ports / RF12 libraries are software.

The above names are also used in the source tree repository now.

There are no doubt still infinitely many ways to lead you astray, but I hope that these definitions will help me place everything into an increasingly coherent context.