Cricket

Tutorial on using cricket location system

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial
 Cricket Goals
Research prototype
build and then evaluate
Useful mainly indoor environments
walls, ceilings not too far
Recognize spaces, not just physical position
good boundary detection is important
doors, floors, etc.

Preserve user’s privacy

Big-brother can be a bother
user has choice to reveal location

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial 2
 Features
Distributed architecture
No wired infrastructure
Easy deployment (no satellites)
Low maintenance
Users are not tracked
Listeners are passive
Large number of listeners w/o
interference
Integrates with a wide range of resource
discovery systems

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial 3
 Cricket: Private location-
support

space = “a2”
Beacon
space = “a1”

Pick nearest to
Listener infer space

No central beacon control or location database

Passive Listeners + Active Beacons

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial
 Finding the distance

distance = speed * time

want to find the distance
we know the speed
How do we figure out time?
Radar: measure round-trip time
cannot use it as it violates some goals

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial 5
 Finding the distance

Synchronized clocks
receiver knows exactly when transmitter
sent signal
how about sending signal first to sync
clocks and then 2nd signal?

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial 6
 Finding the distance

Use two different speed signals

both start at same time
d = s 1 * t1 d = s2 * t2

We measure delay: m = t1 - t2

t2 = m * s1/(s2 - s1)
d = m * s2 s1 /(s2 - s1)

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial 7
 Location Estimation
• Distance estimation via coupled RF and ultrasonic
signals
– Beacons send information on the RF channel with concurrent
ultrasonic pulse

Beacon
RF info

Ultrasound
(pulse)
Listener

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial 8
 Multiple Beacons
Beacon A Beacon B

Incorrect distance

Listener t
RF B RF A US B US A

• Beacon transmissions are uncoordinated

• Ultrasonic signals reflect heavily
• Ultrasonic signals are pulses (no data)
These make the correlation problem hard and can lead to
incorrect distance estimates

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial 10
 Solution

Carrier-sense + randomized transmission

reduce chance of concurrent beacons
Bounding stray signal interference
envelop all ultrasonic signals with RF
Listener inference algorithm
Processing distance samples to estimate location

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial 11
 Bounding Stray Signal
Interference

RF A US A t

• Engineer RF range to be larger than ultrasonic

range
– Ensures that if listener can hear ultrasound, corresponding RF
will also be heard

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial 12
 Bounding Stray Signal
Interference
S/b
S = size of space advertisement
b = RF bit rate
r = ultrasound range t
v = velocity of ultrasound r/v (max)

S r
b v

(RF transmission time) (Max. RF-US separation at the listener)

• No “unaccompanied” ultrasonic signal can be valid!

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial 13
 Bounding stray signal interference

RF B US B

RF A US A t

• Envelop ultrasound by RF
• Interfering ultrasound causes RF signals to collide
• Listener does a block parity error check
– The reading is discarded...

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial 14
 Problem: Closest Beacon May
Not Reflect Correct Space

Room A Room B

I am at
B

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial 15
 Correct Beacon Placement

Room A Room B

x x

I am at
A

• Position beacons to detect the boundary

• Multiple Beacons per space are possible

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial 16
 Implementation
• Cricket beacon and listener

RF RF
Micro- Micro-
controller controller
RS232
US US

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial 17
 CricketUltrasonic
v1 Prototype
RF module (xmit)
sensor
RF module (rcv) RF antenna
Listener Beacon

Atmel
processor

RS232
i/f

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial 18
 Cricket Beacon LEDs
Debug Switch = UP
Green LED = Transmit
Red LED = Carried Sensed

Debug Switch = Down

Green LED = Every 5th
transmission

At Startup
LEDs flash version number
Red on, Green flash count =
Major # Power
Switch
Green on, Red flash count = On
Minor # Off

Power Switch
Up = On Debug Switch
Beacon ID

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial 20
Cricket Beacon Antennas
Receive antenna
Transmit antenna

Receive Antenna
For sensing
transmission of other
beacons
Transmit Antenna
Limit transmission
distance
Should not touch
ultrasound
Should not cover
receive antenna

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial 21
 Listener LEDs
Green Flash
Received valid RF and ultrasound

Red Flash Once

Received Radio, but not ultrasound

Red+Green Flash
RF Error (e.g., parity error)

Red and Green always on

Listener not working correctly

Power On
Both LEDs flash together once

Off On
Power Switch

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial 22
 Software Components
ASCII data
over serial port
9600 baud
Cricket
Beacon Application 1
1

Cricket
Listener cricketd Application 2

Cricket
Beacon Application 3
2

ASCII data
Binary Data on TCP sockets (port 2947)
Over RF

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial 23
 cricketd
Background program (demon) that reads serial port and writes data
to a socket
Command line arguments (defaults work correctly on ipaq)
-T k Version 3 Listeners (with LEDs) (default)
-T c Version 2 Listeners (without LEDs)
-S <port> Socket port number (default is 2947)
-p <dev> Serial port device name (default “/dev/ttySA0”)
-s <baud> Baud rate of serial port (default is 9600)
-h Help
-D <num>Debug level

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial 24
 Cricket Listener Output
Strings reported from Listeners
When good RF and good ultrasound pulse heard:
“$Cricket2,ver=3.0,space=MIT7,id=20,dist=4F,duration=1A”

When only good RF heard, no ultrasound heard:

“$Cricket2,ver=3.0,space=MIT7,id=20”

When RF detected, but parity error detected:

“$Cricket2,ver=3.0,err=rf”

dist

t
duration

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial 25
 Speed of Sound

Listener reports distance and duration in 15.625 KHz counter

cycles ( 64 microseconds each).
Assume speed of sound is 344.49 m/s then 22.047 mm/cycle
For 343.75 m/s = 22 mm/cycle
Need to subtract 36 units for delay from end of RF to start of US
transmission.

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial 26
 So where are you?

Telnet to cricketd (on correct port)

Get names of beacons within range
Get distances from beacons
Lookup beacon location in database
Or use beacon name (longer transmission)
Triangulate (compensate for temp)

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial
 So whre are you?
Beacon name may tell you room
That may be enough
May want to know relative movements
As you walk around the room
No climbing on tables
Can you do it using two beacons?
Can you do it without calibration?

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial
 Two beacons
Put them along the wall
Come very close to one of them
Now know distance between them
Given distances from both
Before and now (d1,d2) & (e1,e2)
Can find relative movement
Two solutions! No problem, why?
Ex. Doom virtual world

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial
 Orientation
Beacons on
ceiling

Orientation relative to B
on horizontal plane

Cricket listener with

compass hardware
Mobile device
(parallel to horizontal plane)

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial 30
 Hardware Design

http://nms.lcs.mit.edu/projects/cricket
http://nms.lcs.mit.edu/cricket/fab
Need user & password
http://nms.lcs.mit.edu/cricket/distrib
Need user & password

MIT 6.893; SMA 5508 Spring 2004 Larry Rudolph Lecture Cricket tutorial 31