µAMPS-1 Node

The µAMPS-1 microsensor node uses commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) components for rapid construction. A µAMPS-1 node consists of a stack of three or four printed circuit boards. The top board contains the radio, including the RF circuitry and the FPGA used for digital coding and decoding. The second board contains an Intel StrongARM processor and associated RAM and flash ROM. Also on the processor board are an acoustic sensor (microphone, amplifier, filter, and analog-to-digital converter) and a collection of dc/dc power converters that service the entire node. The optional third board in the stack is an additional sensor module to replace the acoustic sensor on the processor board. The µAMPS-1 node can be easily adapted to different applications by designing an appropriate sensor board.