Testing Motes IRL

We tested the motes outside to see what kind of range they had. I wrote a simple program for sending a ping between two motes which flashed the LEDs when a packet was received. The aim was to determine if the motes in the greenhouses we have chosen to run our soil science experiments from could communicate with a mote acting as a base-station inside the ACET building.

First we did a ground level test straight down the road. The motes stayed in communication up to around 200 meters, which is what we expected. The purple line shows where we tested and gives you an idea of what 200 meters looks like on the Uni campus.

The second test used a mote in a window on the fith floor of ACET. It showed that the motes could reach the greenhouses but would not be able to communicate back to the CS building without another hop (possibly using food biosciences).