PIC-based TinyOS implementation

Management of wireless sensor networks is an area of research which aims to minimise the power dissipation of such networks while maximising their functionality. TinyOS is a widely used operating system for modern wireless sensors, as its modular system is flexible yet powerful. In order to port TinyOS to a new platform, the nesC compiler must be adapted and some operating system modules must be ported. We describe the issues involved in running TinyOS on a PIC-based wireless sensor, and how the compiler must be modified to cope with the limited PIC architecture. We show that the final performance is comparable to or better than existing sensor systems for a limited set of applications, but that complex applications are likely to prove extremely difficult to implement.