Testbed Environment for Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks

The Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks (WSAN's), defines collaborative operations between the sensors and the actuators, enabling distributed sensing of a physical phenomenon. In this paper, an integrated testbed consisted of wireless sensor network, server station and robot system is proposed. Our main contribution is in the design and development of the server and actuator tier software modules and the communication protocols between them. We provide new applications where actuators are part of the network and perform actions based on the information gathered by sensors. We describe some test scenarios for the potential use of the system. We envision that WSANs will be an integral part of the systems such as battlefield surveillance, nuclear, biological or chemical attack detection, home automation, and environmental monitoring. Our platform offers reusability, modularity and simplicity to the user. Furthermore, it is designed with cheap and off- the- shelf components.