Abstract
Eco is an ultra-compact wireless sensor node. Only 648 mm 3 in volume and weighing under 1.6 grams, Eco was initially designed to monitor the spontaneous motion of preterm infants over 2.4GHz radio links at the maximum data rate of 1Mbps. The compact form factor and low power consumption also make Eco nodes highly suitable for many other applications, including medicine, environmental monitoring, new computer-human interface, and ambient intelligence. This paper describes the hardware and software designs of the second generation Eco nodes and the host interface. We also present an evaluation and comparison against other popular sensor nodes in the similar class. © 2005 IEEE.