The MeshScape Wireless Sensor Networking System

For large, industrial- and commercial-grade networks that work in your environment, you need a system that supports your real-world requirements – all of them.

The MeshScape wireless sensor networking system delivers the highest performance in scalability, reliability, responsiveness, and power efficiency.

• Scalability – MeshScape's highly efficient network protocol generates the lowest amount of overhead in the industry, enabling the highest scalability. Millennial Net regularly deploys large scale networks –in the hundreds of nodes – in real customer installations.
• Reliability – Reliable network connectivity is essential. MeshScape networks offer the highest reliability of data delivery – from sensor to application host – in the industry.
• Responsiveness – In order to monitor and control dynamic systems, the network must be able to respond to changes in the topology due to movement of sensors, addition of new sensors, and environmental conditions. The MeshScape system is highly responsive to mobile sensors and dynamic environments.
• Power Efficiency – Without power efficiency, many of the cost-saving benefits of wireless sensor networking can be lost to battery-changing maintenance. The MeshScape system offers a power-efficient solution allowing all nodes to be battery powered, enabling networks to run on coin cell batteries years.

MeshScape® 5.0

"Best of Sensors" Award Winner!   

The MeshScape 5 wireless sensor network protocol is intended for use in commercial and industrial applications. It is ideally suited for monitoring and control applications such as building automation, energy management, environmental monitoring, factory automation, healthcare and wellness monitoring and process automation. MeshScape 5.0 is optimized for more robust interference resistance, higher scalability in real world environments and lower power operation. Innovations over MeshScape 4 include:

• Virtually-On technology to enable mesh nodes to run at low power for battery operations over several years.
• Active Frequency Hopping to avoid potential interferences for robust operation in highly noisy environments.
• Low Latency capability to reduce the end-to-end packet delivery time to below seconds within a multi-hop environment, even with battery operated mesh node.
• Highly Scalable Dynamic Addressing to ease installation and commissioning for large and complex networks.

Millennial Net 5524 product family provides an embedded platform to minimize time to market for OEMs and enables a broader range of applications. It provides common hardware platform for MeshScape 5 devices and standards-based devices. While Meshscape 5 advances the frontier of wireless sensor network technology, Millennial Net recognizes and supports standards such as WirelessHART™ and the emerging ISA100.11a as important developments in the industrial market. Whether adopting an industry standard or looking to leverage Millennial Net's MeshScape® technology, Millennial Net provides OEMs services and development tools from concept through commercialization.

In contrast to other industrial-class wireless sensor networks, Meshscape 5 enables lower latency industrial applications, suitable for certain control applications in both process and discrete industrial environments, as well as for building automation and energy management. MeshScape is a distributed network which responses quickly to dynamic environments, such as mobile devices and radio interference. MeshScape is a homogeneous TDMA/CSMA protocol which dynamically adapts without human intervention. The tradeoff of TDMA and CSMA protocols has a bearing on the network performance in multiple interdependent aspects of the network such as latency, power consumption.

MeshScape 4.0

MeshScape 4.0 is Millennial Net’s advanced system for commercial- and industrial- class wireless sensor networks. MeshScape 4.0 uses a lightweight, extremely efficient networking protocol – Persistent Dyanamic Routing™ – for the highest performance in reliability, power efficiency, scalability, and responsiveness.

The MeshScape 4.0 software offers a series of features that are configurable through the MeshGate gateway:

• MeshScape-ULP – MeshScape Ultra-Low Power software allows mesh nodes to go into a ultra-low-power sleep mode. Time synchronization ensures that all mesh nodes wake up simultaneously to communicate data traffic.
• MeshScape-QR – MeshScape Query-Response software supports Modbus and other embedded query-response serial protocols.
• MeshScape Installer – The MeshScape Installer is a software installation utility for configuring nodes with group/device IDs or to upgrade firmware.

A complete API library is provided for users to develop integrated applications using Microsoft Visual C/C++. The APIs are delivered on a CD with the system software and hardware modules.

The MeshScape 4.0 modules include:

• MeshGate – MeshGate, the MeshScape gateway, aggregates data from the network, configures network parameters, enables network features, and acts as a portal to monitor network performance. MeshGate has data ports for RS-232 and RS-485, as well as a console port for network configuration and monitoring.
• End nodes – End nodes integrate with sensors and actuators to capture data in star and hybrid star-mesh configurations.
• Mesh nodes – Mesh nodes extend network area coverage, route around obstacles, and provide backup routes in case of network congestion or device failure. Mesh nodes can also integrate directly with sensor and actuators in mesh and hybrid star-mesh configurations.