TinyOS 2.0 Tutorials
Last updated 14 Jun 2006
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. For the beta2 release,
only tutorials 1-5 are ready.
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: Storage
Lesson 7 introduces the TinyOS model model. A sample
application illustrates storing data.
Lesson 8: Power Management
Lesson 8 introduces the TinyOS power management model. There is an exercise that
illustrates how to turn components on and off.
Lesson 9: Concurrency
Lesson 9 introduces the TinyOS concurrency model. Tasks are revisited and async code is introduced.
Lesson 10: Platforms
- chips vs. platforms
- Telescoping abstractions
- Sensorboards
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.