Seeeduinoboot: an Advanced Bootloader for Seeeduino Stalker v2 Platforms, Allowing Remote Firmware Update

Abstract

For Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), where the network devices could be deployed into a large space area, updating directly the firmware application becomes usually complicated or even impossible. A remote solution is absolutely necessary. It decreases the maintenance time and it reduces the cost of the implementation. We have already proposed an implementation of the network device using the Seeeduino Stalker v2.1 platform, as processing unit, and XBee Series 2 module, as wireless communication unit. To implement the remote firmware update functionality it was necessary to modify the existent bootloader application, by adding the possibility of processing the XBee communication telegrams and direct operations on device memory. The new bootloader application, called Seeeduinoboot, has been developed starting from an existing open source version, Optiboot 4.4.