Hello everyone!! For this first project log we are going to give an introduction to the SunLeaf project. Born out of the HydroPWNics project as a redesign of the sensor electronics initially, but quickly evolved into something too general purpose to be relegated to a singular purpose.With that SunLeaf is a picopower, solar/battery powered, and wireless sensor acquisition node. The goal of such a node is to be able to place sensors in any location and log the data to a cloud database without ever having to retrieve the module post deployment! Sunleaf is a completely integrated low cost standalone board. It will be simple to setup, and easily scalable for the largest applications.

The module itself is pretty simple. Onboard is an ARM Cortex M4, ESP8266 ESP-02 module, solar/USB battery charge controller, power regulation circuit, four UART Grove ports, and four I2C Grove ports. Grove connectors were chosen for being smaller and to tap into the existing Grove ecosystem of sensors.

Technical Specs/Features:

- ST Microelectronics STM32F446RET6 ARM Cortex M4F 168MHZ MCU

- ESP-02 ESP8266 WiFi Module

- 4x Seeedstudio UART/USART Grove Sensor Connectors

- 4x Seeedstudio I2C Grove Sensor Connectors

- USB 2.0 Connectivity for Development and Battery Charging

- Solar Panel Battery Charge regulator

- Lithium Polymer battery power and charging

- ESD protection

- Over the air updates via WiFi

- Vivaplanet.io Cloud Service Integration

As one can tell the SunLeaf is a highly generalized module for remote sensing, this give it potential for many applications. Our initial focus will be monitoring of plants, water quality, and climate but will not be limited to only

those applications.

That's all for now, the project is just beginning, so more will follow as the hardware and software are developed.

Stay Tuned!