Connecting Devices to the Cloud on Open Source Hardware and Software

Colin Miller – MicrosoftChris Walker – Secret Labs LLC

Connected Devices – The Internet of Things The connection of the physical world with the virtual world. eg - Thames water (replacing Victorian Cast Iron water mains with

new plastic pipes and instrumenting all of it.) Don’t wait for the sink hole, send a crew before the failure. Eliminate waste in many parts of all of our infrastructure systems.

Not just new applications but new business models Perspective

- 1.5B Internet connected PCs

- <1B Internet connected phones

- By 2020 – 50B Internet connected Devices

“But the bandwagon is not just rolling for the benefit of technology companies and ambitious politicians. It has gained momentum because there is a real need for such systems. In many countries the physical infrastructure is ageing, health-care costs are exploding and money is tight. Using resources more intelligently can make taxpayers’ money go further. Monitoring patients remotely can be much cheaper and safer than keeping them in hospital. A bridge equipped with the right sensors can tell engineers when it needs to be serviced. “ The Economist

Imagine Cup 2011 winning team – Team Hermes

Example Industrial Scenarios

Fleet Tracking

Predictive Maintenance

Power Usage

Power generation

Inventory Management

Labor Allocation

Public Cloud Private Cloud

Data Analytics

The Internet of Things ‘Stack’

Device Management

Smart devices – Dumb devices

Gateway devices Secu

rity

Pri

vacy

Why managed code on Devices

It’s not the ‘embedded’ development environment we are used to Changes to the embedded development landscape

- Before mostly no OS or proprietary OS

- Lower cost/power of 32 bit processors

- Connected applications more complex and require a stack

- Moving to standard OS options Productivity Uniformity

- A single programming model and tool chain throughout connected solutions

The NETMF Open Source Project Smallest .NET implementation

Targets small 32 bit processors (ARM 7-9, Cortex M(x), Analog Devices Blackfin, Renesas SH2)

Currently used in consumer products, industrial automation, energy management, health/eldercare, and lots of new categories.

First Open Source release – Nov 2009

- Apache 2.0

Community based model

- Motivation

- Avoid fragmentation

- Develop a clear collaborative direction

- Core Tech Team

- Microsoft Development Team

- netmf.codeplex.com

- netmf.com

The NETMF Version 4.2

From Microsoft Resources:

VB.NET (a collaboration)

Cryptographic Primitives and Object Model

Remote firmware update

IL Optimizations

Bug fixes

SNTP

From the community:

VB.NET (a collaboration)

New Platform builder

FTP – client (desktop compatible) and server (NETMF only)

Regular Expressions

StringBuilder Type

PWM and Analog/Digital Conversion

Bug fixes

Secure Hardware (SIM Card) drivers

Netduino Open Source Project Company Background (Secret Labs LLC)

- Electronics and software company

- 4+ years of experience with .NET Micro Framework

- Designs consumer and industrial electronics using .NET Micro Framework

- Also creates Netduino, an open source electronics platform for .NET Micro Framework

Open Source Licenses

- Firmware/SDK: Apache 2.0 license (BSD for networking) (LGPL-style)

- Hardware: Creative Commons – Attribution (LGPL-style)

Open Source Hardware

- Netduino

- Netduino Mini

Netduino Open Source Project Netduino Plus

- lwIP network stack (BSD OSS)

- MMC “SPI” SD card support (open protocol) with community SDHC enhancements

- 64KB for .NET MF code

- 40KB RAM

- 8KB of on-chip storage (.NET MF 4.2)

Cross-platform development tools (Mac/Linux support)

- Mono Compiler

- MetaDataProcessor runs under WINE

- MFDeploy/MFDeployEngine run under Mono Runtime on Mac/Linux

- MonoDevelop (in progress)

Netduino Open Source Project Netduino Community Contributions

- OneWire support – CW2

- C# to ARM/THUMB native code interpreter – Corey Kosak

- Enhanced SD support -- KodeDaemon

- I2C repeated start bit

- Extended SPI configurations

- Hardware feedback for open source hardware roadmap

- Bug fixes

NETMF Community Contributions (as Colin mentioned)

- Regular Expressions

- StringBuilder

- Bug fixes

Demo

Connecting Devices to the Cloud First Wine Cellar application PDC 2009

- Sensor to local interface device via 802.15.4 ($$$)

- DPWS (Web Services)

- Discovery

- Eventing Second Wine Cellar app – 2011

- REST-ful Interface Netduino Plus

- Pachube

Demo Architecture

Sensor Actuator

HTTP://PUT HTTP://GET

www.pachube.com

Alterative Architecture

Sensor as Server Actuator as Server

HTTP://GET HTTP://PUT

www.pachube.com

Questions