TinyOS 2.0 Tutorials
Last updated 30 Aug 2007
These brief tutorials are intended to get you started with TinyOS. They show
you the basics of writing, compiling, and installing TinyOS applications.
They introduce the basic TinyOS abstractions: computation, communication,
sensing, and storage. The later tutorials go a little deeper into some of
the more advanced areas of TinyOS, such as handling interrupts,
power management, and how platforms are organized.
Lesson 1 introduces the major concepts of TinyOS: components, modules,
configurations and interfaces. It shows you how to compile and install
a TinyOS program on a mote.
Lesson 2 explains the TinyOS execution model, looking more closely
at modules. It explains events, commands and their relationships to
interfaces in greater depth, introducing split-phase operations.
It explains tasks, the basic mechanism in TinyOS for components to
cooperatively share the processor.
Lesson 3 introduces the TinyOS communication model. There is an exercise that
illustrates sending and receiving messages.
Lesson 4 introduces the the TinyOS toolchain for PCs
and laptops to communicate with motes. It describes the
concept of a packet source, the mig tool,
and SerialForwarder.
Lesson 5 explains how to sample sensors in TinyOS. There is an exercise that
periodically samples a sensor and displays the value on the leds.
Lesson 6 details the boot sequence and, in doing so, answers the question, "But where is main()?".
Lesson 7 introduces the TinyOS storage model. Sample
applications illustrate the use of the Mount, ConfigStorage,
LogRead and LogWrite interfaces.
Lesson 8 introduces the TinyOS resource arbitration and power management model. There are two
exercises in this tutorial. The first one illustrates how to gain access to predefined shared resources.
The second one illustrates how to create your own shared resource. In both tutorials, the process for controlling
the power states of the resource is presented.
Lesson 9: Concurrency
Lesson 9 introduces the TinyOS concurrency model. Tasks are revisited and async code is introduced.
This tutorial is currently unfinished.
Lesson 10 provides a better understanding of the difference between "make
micaz" and "make telosb," including how these commands map into underlying
files, directories, and definitions. It is not necessary for most TinyOS
developers, but is included as a starter's guide for people who wish to
understand the make system better or wish to design a new platform.
Lesson 11 introduces TOSSIM, a TinyOS simulator. TOSSIM allows
you to compile your TinyOS applications into a simulation
framework, where you can perform reproducible tests and debug
your code with standard development tools.
Lesson 12 introduces two basic multihop protocols,
Dissemination and Collection. Dissemination reliably
delivers small data items to every node in a network,
while collection delivers small data items from every node
in a network to designated collection roots.
Lesson 13 describes the details of the TinyOS toolchain, including
the build system, how to create your own Makefile, and how to find out
more information on the various tools included with TinyOS.
Lesson 14: Building a simple but full-featured application
Lesson 14 goes through the process of building a simple anti-theft
application using many of the features and services of TinyOS 2. Lesson 14
is found in the tinyos-2.x/apps/AntiTheft directory. The powerpoint slides
found there (also available in pdf form) go over the basic principles of
TinyOS, and show how to build the accompanying AntiTheft application. Please
start by reading the README.txt file in the AntiTheft directory.
To run the AntiTheft demo you will need mica2 or micaz motes, and
some mts310 sensor boards (you can also use mts300 boards, though you
will lose the movement detection functionality). If you do not have this
hardware, the slides and AntiTheft code should still provide a good
overview of TinyOS 2.
Lesson 15 describes the details of using the TinyOS printf library to
print debug messages to your PC from a TinyOS application running on a mote.
This lesson demonstrates how to write low power sensing applications in TinyOS. At
any given moment, the power consumption of a wireless sensor node is a function of its
microcontroller power state, whether the radio, flash, and sensor peripherals are on,
and what operations active peripherals are performing. This tutorial shows you
how to best utilize the features provided by TinyOS to keep the power consumption
of applications that use these devices to a minumum.