January 18th, 2012
So today see real progress with regard to the Ph.D. I actually managed to get two devices to send messages to each other. It’s only fairly basic using the RIME API in Contiki; but, it works! I broke through yesterday into the ability of doing something but today I worked on the issue and managed to get some actual results. Tomorrow I will spend trying to work out how quickly I can change channels. That should be interesting as I’ve no idea at all how to do it.
In other news today see the world’s largest internet protest against the Protect IP Act and Stop Online Piracy Act, or PIPA and SOPA respectively. Many websites displayed banners and messages detailing these acts, and some went further – Wikipedia disabled their encyclopaedia for the day instead showing a message regarding the issues. Many other prominent websites issued statements regarding the acts. I really hope these do not get through – time will tell. Initial response looks promising.
With that, at 10pm, I will leave my desk and let TfL drag me home.
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January 13th, 2012
So, following meetings and conversations with Yiannis and John, there’s a decision to be made: TinyOS 2, or Contiki? I need to decide what operating system to run on my TelosB nodes. The choice is an awkward one:
- Poorly documented but easilier to program
- Reasonably documented but much harder to program
I have tried a few examples in TinyOS (the harder to program) and have to say that it does really take forever to get anything to work. The example applications work flawlessly, but are quite complex to begin to decompose to learn from. TinyOS is event driven and the user must provide and link callbacks for events by hand.
The alternative, Contiki, is simpler and easier to use, but is currently lacking reference books and documentation that TinyOS has. My aim for the weekend is to experiment with Contiki and get an idea of how suitable it would be as a platform, and any potential edges it has over TinyOS.
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January 11th, 2012
A quick update from fear of it being weeks again. Since the last post all of the wireless sensor networks have been modified, and just 2 remain to be tested. I have finished marking the First year Lab practicals (pre- and post-resonance, as well as pre-transistors). I am yet to find a book on Contiki, which is a shame. Today was a kind of wasted day. I had intended to get some reading done today about Bayesian Probability; alas it was not to be. A trip to the dentist and hygienist took up much of the early morning – I had a nap too, which wasted the rest of the morning (having been up late the previous night).
Yesterday Dave, G7UVW, and I officially entered our first UKAC using the Barking Radio & Electronics Society’s callsign, G3XBF. Hopefully the first of many. Dave has also ordered a portable mast too.
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January 4th, 2012
Well, it’s been a long time since I last posted, and a lot has happened. Things have been very hectic. Since my last post, all aspects of life have changed, mostly for the better; I’ll start with the exception.
So, just before Christmas, but after the last post, Nan was taken into hospital by ambulance with a broken hip. Initially, plans were to operate, but after much deliberation on the part of the doctors at Queen’s Hospital in Romford, they decided not to, on account that she was probably too told and there was higher risk. Instead they dosed her up with medicine and told her to lay still. She remained in Queen’s Hospital until January 3rd, when she was discharged to King George’s Hospital, Hornchurch (an interesting building, left over from World War 2, as there was an airfield very close). King George’s is a rehabilitation hospital, and there Nan is hoping to regain the ability to walk unaided. She seems to be doing well – Time will tell.
Christmas was good. We went to my cousin’s house on Christmas day where my great-cousin, Grace, cooked a lovely Christmas Dinner with Gammon and Turkey! It was really nice. Boxing day we were again treated to lovely food by my uncle David. We saw my cousin Martin’s flat in Debden and then settled back in my uncle’s house for the evening. New Year was uneventful for me; the usual lost all had other plans as nothing had been decided. I had a quite new year, and ended up working on the Arduino Bluetooth Shield hardware.
On the last day of term, and actually the day after Nan went in, we had a meeting at work. A few of the other Ph.D students met with Yiannis and John to discuss about the ‘Wireless Wall’ as I have (literally just) coined it. The plan is to get some of the wireless devices in a test-frame on the wall of one of the Telecom group’s labs – I can’t say too much yet because it is all still speculation, but things have the green light – great! I have been modifying some sensors using the microscope to accommodate an SMA connector – the iMote2 nodes have a horizontal plane antenna which causes severe multipath interference with reflections from the walls. Polarising the antennas at right-angles to the wall is a good solution but requires some modifications – my job! To this post, I’ve modified 7 nodes, and have 16 to do. They have been programmed by Dow with a test program which allows the modification to be validated with a spectrum-analyser. I will be popping into work later tonight to get a some more (hopefully all) nodes modified.
In terms of friends, we’ve had a few nights out as people have been back for Christmas and New Year. Nothing too exciting. Just holding out for my birthday next week!
Hopefully it won’t be so long until my next post! Over and out!
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December 16th, 2011
Today I had a half day due to being in work until 9 pm on Wednesday night. Today again proved to be a late one and I wasn’t home until 10 pm.
I hadn’t originally planned to go in at all today but then remembered that I had said I would meet Kieran for lunch. Kieran chose to work though lunch in order to get home earlier as snow had been forecast for the Midlands. Still I was in.
I went into the lab to tidy up a few bits I had left in the laboratory when it became apparent that we were having new equipment delivered for evaluation. I arrived half way through the salesman’s scripted examples of how to use the almighty Tektronix MDO4104-6. It really is an excellent piece of equipment and I want one (though at a sniff over £19,000 it won’t happen for a long time). We, George (a fellow PhD student) and I, spent the entire day testing and evaluating every claim the device and salesperson made using a Virtex-5 FPGA.
Later once we’d mastered the ‘toy’, George returned to working on his FPGA, with help from the 4104-6, whilst I modified 3 more iMote2 nodes. In the process I managed to stab myself in the hand (very hard) and it hasn’t stopped hurting since.
I stayed up late (now 4am) for no valid reason thus messing my sleeping habits further and minimising my chances of getting up on time tomorrow. I did however get all my Xmas presents for the family ordered as well as some new RAM for the server.
Night…
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December 15th, 2011
After a meeting with Yiannis yesterday, we settled on a plan of action. As Yiannis is away for the next few days at a conference, I decided to modify the Imote2 boards to accommodate an SMA connector for an external antenna. This involved me using the microscope to solder 0204 surface mount capacitors onto the PCB as well as a an SMA connector and a molex connector for power. These were then tested. All was good. Thus far, we’ve modified 4 nodes.
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December 11th, 2011
So this weekend I went to my old friend Aaron’s birthday party at his university flat in Coventry, UK. We, Alice and I, only stayed a few hours due to a busy day on Sunday for us. I hadn’t seen Aaron for just over 2 months so it was good to see him, especially as he hasn’t called much over the past few months. Guessing the Ph.D life keeps him busy too! It was also great to see Natalie as I’ve not seen her for a while either, though more recently than Aaron. We arrived at the flat at about 4:30pm and stayed until about 8:30pm, while they were predrinking before hitting Kasbah in Coventry. We left with them as they were making their way to the club.
Other events this weekend have been minimal. I bought some new socks. That pretty much concludes things. Have been feeling a little depressed of late, but I’m sure it will pan out soon – It usually does!
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December 8th, 2011
The last few days have been standard. I have been on this comms modeling course so that’s taken up all of my time. Today was a little different as I was in the lab tasked with using Monte Carlo methods to simulate a BPSK transmission system and associated BER analysis progressing onto QPSK and OFDM models. I did reasonably well and ended up with a following of about 7 MSc students helping me. I enjoyed it; its interesting to bounce ideas around.
At about quarter past 5 I snuck off to print some documents off for Lorenzo in colour in the library. On our way to dumping our bags in the office we stopped by invited Yiannis along on our evening meal and obligatory drinks – Lorenzo had just landed some work and flown back to the UK at short notice, messing with a relaxing holiday at home in Rome.
Yiannis accepted the drink offer and joined us for a beer in the Jeremy Bentham. It was great! We had a good chat for a couple of hours before it stared to get late. We all disbanded at about 10pm as we all had plans for the next day. I think we all enjoyed it.
Tomorrow is the last day of the CSM course with a new lecturer. Fingers crossed it will be packed full of interesting secrets!
Posted in Course, Food, Social | No Comments »
December 5th, 2011
The week went quickly. John and I talked about ordering some TelosB notes for the 806 test bed. This greatly pleased me as I woud be able to use TinyOS 2.1.2 for my work, as well as having the convienience of programming and starting the nodes on the best bed.
During the weekend I spent a lot of time constructing a box with a fan and the APRS tracker to house my FT-857D radio. This was to fit under the seat in the car as the back compartment in the boot did not have enough room. The box went well.
Today I spent in lectures for Communcation Systems Modeling, a MSc course offered by the university to do with the theory and maths for modeling communcations systems. A lot of it was overview, but I’m hoping it get more in depth. Interestingly it includes a lab class with application in MATLAB which should be good.
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November 29th, 2011
Well, it’s been a long time, a week in fact, since my last post; this is due to the fact that I’ve had no internet connection for the best part of it. Still, these things can’t be helped. It’s back now! This post will aim to cover what’s gone on in the last week:
Work
Work has been going well. It has been decided to get a WSN testbed constructed and placed in Roberts-806 for the use of the telecomms group (of which I am part) when testing wireless sensor networks (which is what I do). I’ve offered my services to solder some SMT SMA connectors for allowing external antennas to be connected. There will also be a need to change some capacitors over too. A decision was made to flash all of the Intel iMote2 nodes to TinyOS (v1), overwriting some of the .NET or straight Linux 2.6 images. This was a bit of a shock to me as I had been concentrating my efforts on TinyOS (v2.1.2) and the CrossBow TelosB notes – a little bit of re-learning needs to be covered. I am also struggling to install TinyOS version 1. This is the state of present progress.
Radio
I have been working on an Icom CI-V Interface for use with my Icom IC-7000 transceiver. While building the interface, I noticed that a USB hub I had acquired from a cheapy shop for £1 turned out to be a fake device, see here. The interface is otherwise going well. Dad and I played with his new Trimble Thunderbolt GPS frequency and time standard, which appears to work nicely.
Social
I’ve not really done too much socially this week. Mostly been working and doing the aforementioned stuff. Went out with Ashleigh (an old College friend) for lunch on Wednesday to JJ Moons, but apart from that and the radio club, I’ve not done much. Chatted to Rhea today on Skype for the first time in ages as she’s docked in Charleston, US. Was good speaking to her.
Concluding Thoughts
That’s pretty much it in other news. Nothing too exciting that warranted my urgent posting happened this week, which is why it’s taken me so long to get around to posting. Sorry about that. I’ll try and be better at this.
Posted in BRES, Electronics, Meeting, PhD, Radio, Social | No Comments »