Embedded Technology And Multiple Wireless Networks

In many public and industrial settings, a number of wireless networks often work concurrently. What if there was an ethernet device which could switch between networks, without losing data packets. Currently, you have to disconnect from one network before you can connect to another. Freescale has developed a transceiver that can do this. A transceiver is a device that can transmit and receive data simultaneously.

Developing the device was obviously a challenge for the company’s embedded developers because the device does not contain micro-controllers, a mainstay of embedded devices. It is merely a radio transceiver. The device also works on a battery (the device is designed such that the transmitter uses less power than the receiver). Emmanual Sambuis, the company’s director of connectivity products, says that the receiver on the device is highly sensitive because they wanted to make the most of the battery and for that, listening well is better than shouting loudly.

The device is a boon for IoT, because it will help in the creation of mesh networks. A mesh network contains a number of nodes and all of them relay data to the network. The nodes also cooperate to distribute data inside the network.

Distributed mesh networks have many benefits. They are cheap, easy to set up, can be made private and cover a vast distance. This is good news for embedded developers too because in the end, they are the ones who design, program and develop the devices that will go on the network.