DALI Bridge FPGA-Based Implementation in a Wireless Sensor Node for IoT Street Lighting Applications

Oscar Osvaldo Ordaz-García,Francisco Javier Quiles-Latorre,José Guadalupe Arceo-Olague,Roberto Solís-Robles,Manuel Ortiz-López,Francisco José Bellido-Outeiriño

doi:10.3390/electronics9111803

Oscar Osvaldo Ordaz-García, Francisco Javier Quiles-Latorre + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics9111803

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Abstract

Smart lighting systems based on the Digital Addressable Lighting Interface (DALI) protocol are the most suitable for street lighting systems, allowing digital lighting control operations. Unfortunately, the microcontrollers, which are commonly used in the Wireless Sensor Network nodes to control the lamps, do not implement this protocol. The DALI protocol implemented by software in the microcontroller consumes hardware resources (timers), processing time and requires a precise temporal analysis of the application, due to the strict bit times and the Manchester coding that it uses. In this work, the design of a bridge is proposed to free the microcontroller from the implementation of the DALI protocol. The novelty of this work is the implementation of the DALI Bridge in a low-cost Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) with low power consumption. The bridge has been described in the hardware description language following the 1076-93 and 1076.3-97 standards, to guarantee its portability. The results of the synthesis show that a minimum amount of logical and routing resources is used, that the power consumption is in the order of tens of mW, that it has a very small latency time and that it supports a high operating frequency, which allows adding new functions. Its operation is verified by implementing a wireless sensor node using an FPGA of the Lattice Semiconductor iCE40 family.

Highlights

The Internet of Things (IoT) requires standardized protocols to integrate heterogeneous devices so that the data transmitted from one end to the other can be interpreted and disseminated, allowing the interconnection of smart devices
The objective of this work is the Hardware Resources (HW) implementation of the Digital Addressable Lighting Interface (DALI) protocol (DALI Bridge) through a low-cost Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) in a Wireless Sensor Node for Street Lighting applications in IoT, that allows for the execution of the DALI protocol in real time and that is suitable for the needs of the application in terms of the integration of devices and sensors
The node where the DALI Bridge was integrated was developed to improve the “UCODALI” node which was described in detail in [16]

Summary

Introduction

The Internet of Things (IoT) requires standardized protocols to integrate heterogeneous devices so that the data transmitted from one end to the other can be interpreted and disseminated, allowing the interconnection of smart devices. The number of mobile and IoT devices continues to grow at a rapid rate [1]. The exchange of information between IoT devices is carried out in local networks formed by sensors and actuators. These networks are managed as Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). In IoT networks, there are millions of interconnected local WSNs, and within each WSN there are different types of smart devices or wireless sensor nodes, which exchange information using different protocols. A wireless sensor node must be capable of processing, in addition to transmitting and receiving information from different wireless sensor nodes or from the Internet

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