Cy-Net™

Ad Hoc Mesh Network Technology Overview

Cy-Net offers a robust self-forming, self-healing mesh network capability for use with Cyan's eCOG range of microcontrollers. For wireless sensor networks, distributed control or low power networks this provides an ideal solution. Cy-Net can be used with both low cost end nodes, and high capability gateway nodes.

Cy-Net will run on RF hardware at any of the common frequency bands (eg. 433MHz, 470MHz, 868MHz, 915MHz, 2.4GHz). It is able to do this by using Cy-Net's modular architecture, allowing different software drivers to be used with different RF transceiver parts. Cyan currently provides support for Micrel's Radiowire® series of transceivers, with further drivers in development. An Application Programming Interface (API) is made available for third-party developers to write transceiver drivers that can be used with Cy-Net.

Applications

• Wireless sensor networks that require a large number of potentially low power sensors to report information back to a central gateway.
• Industrial control applications where remote devices may need to be controlled from a central gateway.
• Automated meter reading (AMR) and Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) allowing utility meters to be read and controlled from a central location, using a local gateway to communicate to a number of distributed nodes.
  

In the first two cases, the entire network can be run using Cy-Net with the gateway node (or nodes) allowing a physical connection to a monitoring workstation. For AMR and AMI applications, a Cyan based gateway will perform a bridge to a wide area network back to base.

Key Features

• Mesh network, with self-forming, self-healing capabilities for robust information delivery. Nodes may be added, removed or relocated without the need for explicit network reconfiguration. The network will dynamically reconfigure to respond to changes in the environment.
• Frequency band agnostic, allowing Cy-Net to be used at different frequency bands and with different transceiver hardware. Choose the frequency band and transceiver hardware to suit the application.
• Representative data rate 15kbp/s at 868MHz
• Designed for low power use, so is ideally suited for long lifetime battery powered sensor nodes.
• Cy-Net also runs on high capability Cyan gateway nodes, providing a bridge to Ethernet or USB connectivity.
• Small size, leaving more room for the user application. The Cy-Net stack is modular, allowing customers to use as much or as little of the stack as they need for their application. A typical stack with transceiver driver will require around 25KB of code space.
  

Routing Protocol

Cy-Net is based on the standard Ad-Hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV) technique, allowing for the route quality to be determined by both the number of hops, and the signal strength between hops. Route quality is continually assessed and poor quality or infrequently used routes may be dropped in order to re-discover better performing routes. Dynamic routing ensures that the network continues to perform well as the environment changes.

Configuration

Cyan's revolutionary CyanIDE configuration tool makes it easy to configure Cy-Net for a particular application. The eCOG is configured using simple drag and drop of peripherals to build a complete system. Cy-Net and the transceiver packet driver are simply modules that are added to the system like any other, and configured using a simple user interface. Additional parameters can be configured using the Cy-Net API, allowing more detailed configuration at runtime. The Cy-Net stack follows the standard OSI model, and the developer may interact with the stack at any of the levels (level 2 - packet driver, level 3 - network layer, or level 4 - transport layer). Only the levels that are used by the application require code space; unused layers are not compiled into the final application.

Licensing

In Cyan's production-ready gateways and modules, Cy-Net comes included in the price.