Portia Radio Module

Powered with SpiderMesh cooperative mesh network technology

PORTIA radio transceivers provide an extremely high wireless network range. To achieve this, radios use the proprietary SPIDERMESH technology, a cooperative mesh wireless protocol developed by Smartrek Technologies. This protocol provides synchronous communication between the links to mitigate network contention issues. As a result, this strategy allows PORTIA radios to offer a connectivity solution for the most challenging applications.

Each of the radios can be configured either as a gateway or as a node. Gateways control the entire mesh network by coordinating wireless data exchanges. Furthermore, they also act as a bridge between mesh networks and a host such as a computer, tablet or internet gateway.

The nodes act as repeaters within the linked networks. Data transfer is bidirectional, and thus, nodes allow for controlling and/or reading digital/analog external modules, therefore connecting them to the mesh network. Additionally, activating a link in the field only requires the node to be on the same radio frequency channel as the network during deployment. Consequently, this considerably reduces installation complexity as there is no technical knowledge required for its use.

Smartrek Portia radio module with Spidermesh protocol on transparent background

Features

  • Low Power Application (IoT)

  • True Cooperative Mesh Networking

  • Long Range Communication

  • AES 128 bits Encryption

  • Analog and Digital I/O for Sensing/Control

  • Virtual Machine Upgradeable OTA

  • Fully Customizable Co-Processor

  • XBee Compatible Footprint

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Specifications

Dimension 1.140″ x 1.890″ (29mm x 48mm)
Operating Temperature -20 to 70C guaranteed for max hop count/ -40 to 85C for half hop count
Storage Temperature -40 to 85C
Antenna Connector U.fl
Encryption AES 128 bits
Virtual Machine Memory 16 kBytes
Internal Modules 1x TTL Serial port, 13x GPIOs, 1x SPI, 1x I2C, 2x ADC channels, 1x channel
Serial Baud Rate 2400, 4800, 9600, 19200, 38400, 57600, 115200, 125000
Coprocessor 8 kBytes flash memory, 128 bytes EEPROM, 512 bytes SRAM

Portia Versions

Europe

ETSI 869 Mhz standard frequencies

Transceiver
Urban / Indoor / NLOS* 100 – 500m
Outdoor / LOS** > 1o km
Transmit Power Low: 25 mW High: 100 mW
RF Data Rate 50 kbits
Nb. of Channels 5
Frequency (Mhz) 869.425 to 869.625 Mhz
Receiver Sensitivity -110 dBm
Electrical Characteristics
Supply 3.3 – 6.5V
All input / output pins -0.5 to 3.3V
Transmit Current 130 mA peak
Receive Current 20 mA
Sleep 30 uA

North America

FCC 915MHz ISM standard frequencies

Transceiver
Urban / Indoor / NLOS* 100 – 500m
Outdoor / LOS** > 10 km
Transmit Power Low: 50 mW High: 100 mW
RF Data Rate 50 kbits
Nb. of Channels 6
Frequency (Mhz) 902 to 928 Mhz
Receiver Sensitivity -110 dBm
Electrical Characteristics
Supply 3.3 – 6.5V
All input / output pins -0.5 to 3.3V
Transmit Current 130 mA peak
Receive Current 20 mA
Sleep 30 uA

*NLOS: None Line of Sight

**LOS: Line of Sight

Performance

The mesh network algorithm synchronizes all wireless communications over time. This reduces energy consumption in order to achieve very long network operating time. Most applications can reach an autonomy ranging from 12 to 48+ months per link, depending on the batteries type and capacity and the network refresh time. With these low energy specifications, PORTIA radios offer a powerful solution for object connectivity.

Serial Interface

PORTIA radios have 2 serial communication modes to interact with the mesh network. The first mode is transparent and all data received on the serial port of a node will be transmitted to all other nodes. The second mode uses a programming interface (API). Messages transmitted on the serial port contain an address and a command which allows you to specify a node or to communicate to all nodes simultaneously.

Virtual machine and over-the-air updates

PORTIA radios feature an embedded virtual machine allowing over-the-air firmware updates. This allows application-specific user scripting to control the internal modules of the PORTIA radio and ease interfacing with external sensors, without needing supplementary glue logic. The execution of the virtual machine is made possible by sharing the resources of the main processor used for wireless communications.

Hardware

PORTIA radios are equipped with a serial port, digital and analog inputs/outputs, I2C and SPI communication ports. They also feature Xbee footprint compatible connectors in order to reduce friction when migrating existing systems to SpiderMesh enabled PORTIA radios. For tasks requiring real-time execution, a co-processor is made available in addition to the main processor.

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