Contiki

Contiki is an open source, multi-tasking, networked, and highly portable operating system specially designed for memory-constrained. It has been engineered in such a way that it can connect tiny low-power, low-cost microcontrollers to the World Wide Web, making it the operating system for the Internet of Things.

Supports a wide range of low-power wireless devices

With an active community and a fast, rapid development cycle, Contiki features support for a wide range of low-power wireless devices, full support for IPv6 and IPv4 protocols, as well as support for the 6lowpan, CoAP, and RPL low-power wireless standards.

Integrates the coffee flash file system

Among other highlights, we can mention memory allocation, full IP networking, power awareness, sleepy routers, dynamic module loading, the Cooja Network Simulator, protothreads, coffee flash file system, the Contiki shell, the Rime stack, regression tests, low memory footprint, and much more.

Supported on a wide range of platforms

Contiki is supported on a wide range of platforms, among which we can mention apple2enh, atari, c128, c64, sky, jcreate, sentilla-usb, msb430, esb, avr-atmega128rfa, seed-eye, cc2530dk, sensinode, native, minimal-net, cooja, mb851, mbxxx, redbee-dev, redbee-econotag, micaz, exp5438, z1, cc2538dk, avr-raven, avr-rcb, avr-zigbit, iris, and EVAL-ADF7023DB1.

Getting started with Contiki

To get started with the Contiki operating system, you will have to download the latest release from Softoware, save the ZIP archive on your Home directory, and extract its contents using an archive manager utility. Open the README-BUILDING.md file to learn how to build the OS for your platform (see the section above for supported platforms).

To give Contiki a try, you will have to basically open a terminal window, go to the Cooja directory (e.g. cd contiki/tools/cooja), start Cooja by running the ‘ant run’ command, wait for Cooja to start and use an example simulation as explained in the official Getting Started guide http://www.contiki-os.org/start.html.

What is new in this release:

• New features and mechanisms:
• Regression test framework
• Travis integration
• New code style script
• mDNS
• Trickle timer library
• Compiler output less verbose
• Severe bugfixes in:
• CSMA
• 802.15.4 framer
• Nullrdc
• ContikiMAC
• 6lowpan fragmentation handling
• IPv6
• RPL routing
• IPv6 stack:
• IPv6 neighbor table refactorization
• IPv6 routing table refactorization
• RPL rewrite
• RPL auto-repair of failed routes
• IPv6 stack monitor if neighbor fails
• Callbacks on routing table changes
• 6lowpan: allow the maximum radio frame size to be configured
• Platforms:
• New TI CC2538 802.15.4 System-on-a-Chip platform
• New PIC32 / SeedEye platform
• STM32w updated
• CC2430 updated
• MC1322x updated
• Cooja:
• Support for link-layer ACKs
• Improved stack monitoring and stack overflow triggering
• Improved radiologger: duplicate packets now collapsed
• Improved Timeline handling
• Save radio bitrate in .csc file
• Support for CC1101, CC1120, and ENC28J60 emulation
• MSPsim support for MSP430x instruction set, verified against hardware

What is new in version 2.6:

• Antelope. A lightweight SQL-like database manager for Contiki (apps/antelope and examples/antelope).
• Erbium. A new CoAP implementation for Contiki (apps/erbium and examples/erbium).
• JSON library. A lightweight JSON parsing and construction library (apps/json) and a web services HTTP server (apps/httpd-ws).
• ContikiMAC. Improvements to allow busts of packets to be sent rapidly.
• RPL. Added support for extension headers.
• Native border router. The RPL border router can now optionally run as a native process under Linux and communicate with a low-power radio over a serial port.
• Cooja. Many improvements to the user interface. Simulation support for the MSP430x architecture and the exp5438, wismote, and z1 platforms.
• stm32w. Added support for ContikiMAC.
• New ports: cc2530, exp5438, wismote.
• Instant Contiki. Updated to Ubuntu 12.04. Eclipse installed as default editor.

What is new in version 2.5:

• ContikiRPL:
• ContikiRPL is a new implementation of the proposed IETF standard RPL protocol for low-power IPv6 routing. ContikiRPL now is the default IPv6 routing mechanism in Contiki.
• ContikiMAC:
• The new ContikiMAC state-of-the-art low-power listening asynchronous radio duty cycling mechanism is now the default duty cycling mechanism in Contiki.
• Contiki Collect:
• Contiki Collect is an address-free data collection protocol that runs on top of the Contiki Rime stack. For Contiki 2.5, Contiki Collect has been completely reworked to provide a significantly improved performance as well as configurability.
• CollectView:
• CollectView is a Java GUI that is used to set up a Contiki data collection network, either over Contiki collect or over UDP/IPv6/RPL.
• Powertrace:
• Powertrace is an interface to the Contiki power profiling system that allows either real-time inspection or off-line analysis of the power consumption of a sensor network.
• The Contiki simulation environment:
• The MSPSim/Cooja simulation environment has received a significant speed-up.
• CoAP/REST:
• Contiki 2.5 includes an experimental implementation of the IETF CoRE group's CoAP application layer protocol for RESTful interaction with a low-power IP sensor network.
• New platforms:
• Zolertia Z1, RedWire Econotag mc13224v, ST Microelectronics STM32w, Sentilla JCreate.

What is new in version 2.4:

• Main changes:
• Significant improvements to power-saving low-power radio MAC protocols.
• Several bugfixes to uIP and the SICSlowpan code.
• New sensor API.
• Significant COOJA/MSPsim speedup.
• Two new experimental platforms: MicaZ and Sensinode 8051/CC2430.
• Low-Power Radio MAC Protocols:
• New CSMA MAC protocol, running on top of the low-power MAC layer protocols such as X-MAC, that performs retransmissions when it detects collisions or interference. Enabled by default on Tmote Sky.
• Significant improvements to X-MAC: the low-power operation now registers the phase of the neighbors and reduces the strobing period according to the phase of the receiver; broadcasts are transmitted more power-efficiently; frame format now compatible with 802.15.4.
• Streaming support for both LPP and X-MAC.
• New non-rtimer-based implementation of X-MAC, called CX-MAC, for platforms without rtimer support.
• New configuration option for easier tuning of low-power MAC channel check rate.
• Tmote Sky boot-up code now prints channel check rate by default.
• uIP and Rime Networking:
• SICSlowpan now with low-power MAC for Tmote Sky.
• Bugfix that allow 6lowpan fragmentation and reassembly with low-power MAC on the Tmote Sky.
• Bugfixes in uIP code: start timer if lost SYN; loss of SYNACK bugfix; avoid using floating point operations in IPv6 code.
• Bugfix in IPv4-over-mesh: work better over low-power MAC.
• Support for receiving IPv4 multicast.
• Runicast retransmission time configurable in contiki-conf.h.
• Improved Tmote Sky IPv6/6lowpan bridge setup.
• API Changes:
• Sensors API changed; Tmote Sky platform updated to match the new API.
• COOJA:
• 10x speed improvement through improved MSPSim integration.
• Introduced low-overhead debugging interface for MSPSim-based simulation.
• Simplified application-level simulation, with examples.
• Coffee filesystem integration.
• Improvements to Timeline and Visualizer plugins.
• Better support for MicaZ emulation.
• Nightly Builds and Contiki Regression Test Suite:
• Test configuration structure updated: test files are now self-contained.
• New uIPv6 routing test.
• Improved shell collect test.
• New shell netperf test.
• Contiki Shell:
• New shell modules: netperf for testing the communication performance between two neighbors, memdebug, with commands 'peek' and 'poke', for reading and setting memory locations from the shell - useful for debugging device drivers.
• Alignment bugfixes.
• Drivers:
• CC2420 now allows transmission power to be set on a per-packet basis.
• CC2420 timesynch bugfix.
• CC2420: Enabled SFD interrupts.
• Serial line improvements.
• Faster SPI driver.
• Platforms:
• New platforms: MicaZ (experimental), Sensinode 8051/CC2430. (experimental)
• Minimal-net now has IPv6 support.
• Significant improvements to Tmote Sky IPv6 support.
• 6502: Compatibility with cc65 version 2.13;80 column screen on Apple2 and C1286502 stuff.
• msb430: New SD driver written from scratch.
• Other Changes:
• Modules mmem and dhcpc are now compiled by default.
• New examples for email, irc, webserver, wget.
• Improved IPv4 and IPv6 examples for the Tmote Sky.
• Bugfixes in AVR ELF loader.
• Power profiling bugfix: energy was sometimes misattributed when peripheral was switched off when it was already off.
• New simplified rtimer code that only handles one rtimer.
• Rime examples now run on disjoint channels to avoid semantic interference.
• New Java-based maintenance tool for Coffee file system images.
• Improved makefsdata script.

What is new in version 2.2.3:

• New features include checkpointing, which stores the complete execution state of a system in a single file; per-packet power profiling, which allows fine-grained breakdown of power consumption; announcements, which make neighbor and route announcements protocol-independent; and Deluge, a bulk data dissemination protocol.
• New ports to the Meshnetics ZigBit and Sentilla JCreate modules were released.

What is new in version 2.2.1-uipv6:

• This release contains uIPv6, the world's smallest IPv6 stack, jointly developed by Cisco, Atmel, and SICS.

What is new in version 2.2.1:

• We are happy to announce the release of Contiki 2.2.1! The focus of this release is to fix bugs found in the 2.2 version. The changes are: significant bugfixes and performance improvements to the data collection protocol; improved data presentation in the Contiki collect program; reduction in power consumption for the X-MAC radio mechanism; performance improvements and bugfixes to the Coffee flash file system; workaround for a problem with the CC2420 radio.