RN-174P-I/RM: Wi-Fi 802.11b/g Module

The RN-174 evaluation board is a field-ready, Wi-Fi Alliance certified, 802.11 b/g prototyping platform for the RN-171 module. The board has the flexibility to connect directly to embedded processors via a standard RS-232 interface or through the TTL UART interface. The RN-174 contains a battery boost circuit, which makes it possible to power the board using two AA batteries (the input voltage can go down to down to 2.0 V DC when using the battery boost circuit). The battery boost circuit makes the RN-174 perfect for battery powered applications such as sensors, data acquisition systems, controllers, etc. The status LEDs and jumpers enable rapid prototyping and integration into existing systems.

The RN-174 is based on the Roving Networks RN-171 module. The RN-171 module incorporates a 2.4-GHz radio, processor, full TCP/IP stack, real-time clock, and supports the FTP, DHCP, DNS, and HTML client protocols. The RN-171 is the smallest, lowest power 802.11 b/g module available. The module supports ad hoc and infrastructure networking modes.

The analog sensor interface provides direct connections to send temperature, acceleration, and other analog data without requiring an external microprocessor. The RN-171 module is programmed and controlled with a simple ASCII command language. Once the configuration is set up, the module can automatically scan to find an access point, associate, authenticate, and connect over any Wi-Fi network. Additionally, the module can automatically send data to a remote host and go back to a low-power sleep state once the data transmission completes.