SENSEI Sensor Shield

This repository contains the hardware design files for the SENSEI Sensor Shield, a versatile extension developed as part of the Urban Twin project. The sensor shield integrates multiple sensors for environmental monitoring and is designed to work seamlessly with the SENSEI Base Board, offering advanced data collection capabilities for urban sensing and other applications.

Overview

The SENSEI Sensor Shield is an extension board designed to support a wide range of sensors for environmental data acquisition. It can be used in urban monitoring scenarios, including air quality monitoring, light sensing, and structural health diagnostics. Developed under the Urban Twin project, it is built for flexibility and long-term deployment, making it ideal for multi-sensor applications.

Key Features

• Optical Sensors:

  • Ultraviolet (UVA, UVB, UVC) sensing.
  • Infrared and Visual light sensing.
  • Camera (HM0360): 640 x 480 resolution at 60 fps.

• Environmental Sensors:

  • CO2 Sensor (SCD41).
  • Air Quality Sensor (SGP41).
  • Barometer (ILPS28QSWTR).
  • Gas Sensor (BME688).
  • Quasi-Electrostatic Potential (QVar) for detecting potential changes.

• Position/IMU Sensors:

  • IMU (ISM330DHCX): Advanced 6 DOF sensor for motion tracking and vibration analysis.
  • GNSS (u-blox M10) for accurate geolocation.

• External Connectors:

  • I2C, UART, and GPIO for seamless integration of additional peripherals.

Software Development Kit (SDK)

The SENSEI SDK provides software support for both the SENSEI Base Board and the SENSEI Sensor Shield. It includes sensor drivers, power management, and communication tasks to facilitate data collection and processing. The SDK is available at SENSEI SDK Repository.

Demo Applications

• YOLOv5 Occupancy Detection: https://github.com/pulp-bio/sensei-demo-yolov5
• Sensor Readout: https://github.com/pulp-bio/sensei-demo-sensorhub

Changelog

A detailed changelog is available in the Changelog.md file, which tracks all major updates and revisions to the board's design and documentation.

Contributors

• Philip Wiese (wiesep@iis.ee.ethz.ch)
• Sebastian Frey (sefrey@iis.ee.ethz.ch)

Publications

If you use the SENSEI Sensor Shield in your work or research, you can cite us with:

COINS 2025: A Multi-Modal IoT Node for Energy-Efficient Environmental Monitoring with Edge AI Processing

@misc{wiese2025multimodaliotnodeenergyefficient,
      title={A Multi-Modal IoT Node for Energy-Efficient Environmental Monitoring with Edge AI Processing},
      author={Philip Wiese and Victor Kartsch and Marco Guermandi and Luca Benini},
      year={2025},
      eprint={2507.14165},
      archivePrefix={arXiv},
      primaryClass={eess.SP},
      url={https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.14165},
}

This paper has been accepted at 2025 IEEE International Conference on Omni-layer Intelligent Systems (COINS) and the preprint is available on arXiv @ arXiv:2507.14165.

SENSEI Paper

TBD

License

This repository makes use of two licenses:

• for all software: Apache License Version 2.0
• for all hardware: Solderpad Hardware License Version 0.51

For further information have a look at the license files: LICENSE.hw, LICENSE.sw