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µracoli - The µController Radio Communication Library

The project intends to demonstrate capabilities and usage of Atmel's IEEE-802.15.4 radio transceivers (AT86RF230, AT86RF231, AT86RF212) in combination with AVR 8 bit microcontrollers (e.g. ATmega16, ATmega1281, ATtiny84, ...).

What is it about?

µracoli simply provides two libararies for Z-Link based embedded radio platforms. Z-Link is an Atmel brand name for a product line of 802.15.4 radio transceivers mainly used in conjunction with the Atmel ATmega and ATtiny microcontrollers. µracoli uses the avr-libc and compiles with avr-gcc.

The main library is libradio_board.a. It provides basic functions to control a radio transceiver, starting from simple register read/write and ending up with high level functions like CCA based transmission or address filter based frame reception with acknowledgement.

The second library libio_board.a is a support library which provides access to GPIO, timer and UART ressources of the embedded platforms. Nevertheless the library libradio_board.a can be used standalone, without any need for libio_board.a, giving the aplication developper full control over the microcontroller ressources. Just the SPI interface of the microcontroller, two GPIO ports, and one IRQ line are necessarry to control the radio transceiver.

Because there are many different variants of hardware platforms with the above mentioned microcontrollers and radio transceivers, µracoli also provides a platform abstraction concept, which allows the easy definition and integration of new hardware platforms into the project.

A general question for micro controller projects is the FLASH and RAM usage. Here is a list of the avr-size output for all µracoll binaries: sizes.txt.

Getting Started

There are the following scenarios, that would motivate the use of µracoli:

  • You have a supported hardware plattform and want to ...
    • ... run the examples. more
    • ... use one of the applications. more
    • ... write your own application, using the µracoli functions. more
  • You have a new hardware and want to have the µracoli functions working with it. more

Online Ressources

News

  • 2009/07/21 Version 0.0.10 released (precompiled packages fixed)
  • 2009/07/01 Version 0.0.9 released, update of web page
  • 2009/06/05 The CVS source repository is up again, many thanks to all Savannah people !
  • 2009/05/15 Acceleration Sensor Board littleGee added
  • 2009/04/21 first users show up with their projects, added a project page
  • 2009/03/20 added support for RCB212 Meshbean 900 in CVS
  • 2009/02/11 added support for RCB231 and STB w/ RCB231
  • 2009/02/03 Wireshark interface works now on Linux and Windows, see documentation
  • 2009/01/15 added support for AT86RF212 boards
  • 2008/12/07 sniffer runs initially with rzusbstick
  • 2008/12/04 wgpio application works with power down, fixed meshbean implementation
  • 2008/10/13 registered an USB Vendor ID / Device ID (5824 / 2183) for Raven USB support
  • 2008/10/08 added support for Sensor Terminal Board from Dresden Elektronik
  • 2008/08/20 Version 0.0.8 released, update of web page
  • 2008/07/17 updated webpage with a list of platforms
  • 2008/07/09 added support for AT86RF230A/B, AT86RF231
    Template based generation of transceiver header files with cut&paste register tables from the data sheets.
  • 2008/05/14 added support for Meshbean
  • 2008/02/16 µracoli goes online
    The initial version of µracoli is hosted at Savannah.
Axel Wachtler
Last modified: Mi 22. Jul 06:23:14 CEST 2009		 Visitor Counter