PJON® (Padded Jittering Operative Network) is an Arduino compatible, multi-master, multi-media network protocol. It proposes a new Open Standard, it is designed as a framework and implements a totally software-defined network protocol stack that can be easily cross-compiled on many MCUs and architectures like ATtiny, ATmega, SAMD, ESP8266, ESP32, STM32, Teensy, Raspberry Pi, Linux, Windows x86, Apple and Android. PJON is a valid tool to quickly and comprehensibly build a network of devices for free without the need of a cloud service or a centralized platform you don’t fully control. If you want to know more and support the PJON project see the PJON protocol handbook and the PJON 12.0 big box.
PJON is used in thousands of devices and its community has spread worldwide because of the following 6 key factors:
- New technology: PJON is an experimental network protocol stack crafted in 8 years of research and experimentation. It was originally developed as an open-source alternative to i2c and 1-Wire but during development its scope and features have been extended to cover use cases where IP is generally applied. PJON has been engineered to have a variable footprint (4.2-8.2 kB program memory) and overhead (5-22 bytes per packet) depending on its configuration.
- Multi-media support: PJON packets can be transmitted on a wide range of media and protocols like TCP, UDP, Serial, RS485 and LoRa. The PJON network protocol stack specifies and implements also the PJDL wired data link able to communicate data through a single common conductive element shared by up to 255 devices, PJDLR wireless data link compatible with many ASK/FSK/OOK radio modules, and also PJDLS wireless data link able to communicate through light pulses using off the shelf LEDs and laser diodes easing integration and enabling a lot of applications.
- Increased security: Devices using Ethernet/WiFi are often vulnerable to ransomware, cyber warfare and private data leak. PJON has been engineered to enhance security not necessarily implementing the standard network protocol stack together with its vulnerabilities where it is not absolutely necessary offering a set of alternatives for many use cases.
- Increased reliability: Many protocols massively applied worldwide expose dangerous vulnerabilities, have weak error detection algorithms and are not resilient to interference. PJON is based on years of analysis and study not to make the same mistakes present in most alternatives and provide with a set of simpler and more efficient solutions.
- High flexibility: PJON is totally software-defined and its implementation is designed to be easily extensible. it builds out-of-the-box in all supported devices and operates transparently on top of any supported protocol or medium.
- Low cost: Without any additional hardware needed to operate, minimal network wiring requirements and direct pin-to-pin or LED-to-LED communication, PJON is extremely energy efficient, cheap to be implemented and maintained. This implementation is kept updated and meticulously tested thanks to the strong commitment of its growing community of end users, testers and developers.
- Cross-compilation support with the interfaces system calls abstraction
- Multi-media support with the strategies data link layer abstraction
- Hot-swap support, no need of system reset or shut down when replacing or adding devices
- Configurable synchronous and/or asynchronous acknowledgement
- Configurable 2 level addressing (device and bus id) for scalable applications
- Configurable 1 or 2 bytes packet length (max 255 or 65535 bytes)
- Configurable CRC8 or CRC32 table-less cyclic redundancy check
- Packet manager to handle, track and if necessary retransmit a packet sending in background
- Error handling
- ModuleInterface - easy config and value sync between IoT modules by Fred Larsen
- PJON-cython - cython PJON wrapper by xlfe github user
- PJON-piper - command line wrapper by Zbigniew Zasieczny
- PJON-python - python interface by Zbigniew Zasieczny
- PJON-gRPC - gRPC server-client by Oleh Halytskyi
Researchers are active in many universities worldwide using PJON in different environments. The following list contains all the known published academic studies about PJON:
- Definition and Application of PJON-PLC for sensor networks by Jorge Gómez Segurola, Ingeniería de Tecnologías de Telecomunicación - Universidad de Cantabria (ES)
- Biomimetic electronics by Charlie Williams with scientific input from researchers Vítor Martins dos Santos, Diana Machado de Sousa and Sabine Vreeburg - Artist in Residency at Wageningen University (NL)
Feel free to send a pull request sharing something you have made that could help, if you want to support this project you can also try to solve an issue. Thanks to support, expertise, kindness and talent of the following contributors, the protocol's documentation, specification and implementation have been strongly tested, enhanced and verified:
Fred Larsen, Zbigniew Zasieczny, Matheus Garbelini, sticilface, Felix Barbalet, Oleh Halitskiy, fabpolli, Adrian Sławiński, Osman Selçuk Aktepe, Jorgen-VikingGod, drtrigon, Endre Karlson, Wilfried Klaas, budaics, ibantxo, gonnavis, maxidroms83, Evgeny Dontsov, zcattacz, Valerii Koval, Ivan Kravets, Esben Soeltoft, Alex Grishin, Andrew Grande, Michael Teeww, Paolo Paolucci, per1234, Santiago Castro, pacproduct, elusive-code, Emanuele Iannone, Christian Pointner, Fabian Gärtner, Mauro Mombelli, Remo Kallio, hyndruide, sigmaeo, filogranaf, Maximiliano Duarte, Viktor Szépe, Shachar Limor, Pantovich, Mauro Zancarlin, Franketto, jzobac, DanRoad, fcastrovilli, Andrei Volkau, maniekq, DetAtHome, Michael Branson, chestwood96 and Mattze96.
All the software included in this project is experimental and it is distributed "AS IS" without any warranty, use it at your own risk. Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. PJON® and its brand are registered trademarks, property of Giovanni Blu Mitolo gioscarab@gmail.com
In all cases, when installing or maintaining a PJON network, extreme care must be taken to avoid any danger. When a SoftwareBitBang bus is installed each pin must be protected with a current limiting resistor. When working with an AnalogSampling LED or laser based setup safety glasses must be worn and transceivers must be operated cautiously to avoid potential eye injuries. Before any practical test or a hardware purchase for a wireless OverSampling, ThroughSerial or ThroughLoRa radio setup, compliance with government requirements and regulations must be ensured. When connecting a local bus to the internet using EthernetTCP or GlobalUDP all connected devices must be considered potentially compromised, potentially manipulated or remotely actuated against your will. It should be considered a good practice not to connect to the internet systems that may create a damage (fire, flood, data-leak) if hacked.