WINTeR: Architecture and Applications of a Wireless Industrial Sensor Network Testbed for Radio-Harsh Environments

The present work relates to WINTeR, an open access, multi-user experimental facility, currently under development, to support implementation and evaluation of wireless sensor networks for industrial applications in radio-harsh environments. A brief review of existing testbeds is provided and the unique requirements of WINTeR are defined. The resulting WINTeR architecture provides remote accessibility to a full-scale industrial setting including a network of programmable motes each with a programmable attenuator and power monitor, a complex multipath environment, an EMI generator, and a data generator. Experimental analysis tools provide for data logging and graphing as experiments proceed. The resulting testbed will support development and evaluation of emerging physical layer technologies, propagation models, routing protocols, security protocols, power consumption models, the validation of wireless solutions for industrial processes, and most importantly cross-layer optimization. Some examples of how the testbed can be used are briefly presented.