Radiocommunication test suite for wireless sensor networks

Abstract

In wireless sensor networks there is a great need for a test environment where multiple network topologies and communication protocols can be easily described, tested and evaluated under different circumstances in a controlled and reproducible way. Such a testbed could reveal the effectiveness or the bottleneck of networks and protocols.

Our proposed framework is designed to perform unit tests focusing on the wireless communication by collecting specially designed statistical indices. It supports all WSN platforms, dynamic network topologies, multiple communication modes, Low-Power-Listening, etc.

Communication is tied to specific events such as timers, message sending and reception, or control messages. During unit tests, simple messages with unique payloads are transmitted and statistics are collected about the communication in progress. Model verification is also incorporated to ensure data consistency. Since statistics are collected per edge, there is a possibility to analyze the network or a part of it.