Toward a Real and Remote Wireless Sensor Network Testbed

A real outdoor wireless sensor network (WSN) testbed will face challenges not seen in indoor environment, including remote OAP (over-the-air-programming) and efficient energy use. In this paper, we propose to build a real remote WSN testbed that, allows reprogramming of the whole network over-the-air with reasonable energy cost. Our system provides a user-friendly wet) interface to allow developers upload their application codes and test their algorithms or protocols. In order to support repeated reprogramming requests, we present a novel protocol named VMOAP(Versatile Multi-hop Over-the-Air Programming). Unlike traditional OAP protocols, VMOAP provides an arbitrary Way to support the testing of low level protocols(such as routing protocols), while maintaining system's fundamental capability to accept future OAP reprogramming requests. VMOAP is implemented in a MICAz-motes-based sensor network. We test our approach in a small real network, and in Tossim simulator with a larger network size. We also perforin simulations to evaluate Our system's energy cost using our Micaz energy model. The results indicate that our system is suitable for large WSNs, and can be fully supported by one Silicon 16530 solar panel (small), and can also survive up to 113 hours at standby state powered solely by two AA batteries.