MiWi
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| International standard | IEEE 802.15.4 |
|---|---|
| Developed by | Microchip Technology |
| Industry | Wireless PAN |
| Compatible hardware | MiWi module MRF24J40MB |
| Physical range | 20-50 meters |
MiWi and MiWi P2P are wireless protocols designed by Microchip Technology that use small, low-power digital radios based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard for wireless personal area networks (WPANs). It is designed for low data transmission rates and short distance, cost constrained networks, such as industrial monitoring and control, home and building automation, remote control, low-power wireless sensors, lighting control and automated meter reading.
The MiWi protocols are supported on certain Microchip PIC and dsPIC microcontrollers. When developing for these platforms, proprietary SDKs and hardware development tools, such as the ZENA wireless packet sniffer, may be used.
Microchip has released two application notes which present technical information on MiWi. These are not primarily protocol specifications and more than half of these documents are focused on implementing the MiWi protocol on Microchip microcontrollers.
As of 2009, interoperable third party implementations have not appeared. Unless they do, it will not be clear if those specifications are complete or accurate enough to serve roles other than supporting Microchip's code or being one more proprietary example of a lightweight WPAN stack. Many developers trying to use WPAN technologies have observed that Zigbee seems undesirably complex. Accordingly, there exists a technical niche for a simpler protocols, of which MiWi is a proprietary example.
On the PIC platform, the MiWi protocol stacks are small foot-print alternatives (3K-17K) to ZigBee (40K-100K), which makes them useful for cost-sensitive applications with limited memory. Although the MiWi software can all be downloaded for free from its official website, there exists a unique restriction and obligation to use it only with Microchip microcontrollers.
The MiWi P2P protocol stack supports star and peer-to-peer wireless-network topologies, useful for simple, short-range, wireless node-to-node communication. Additionally, the stack provides sleeping-node, active-scan and energy-detect features while supporting the low-power requirements of battery-operated devices.
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