Design and Implementation of Programmable Nodes in Software Defined Sensor Networks

In this paper, we design and implement the programmable nodes in software-defined sensor networks. Combining the emerging software defined networking (SDN) and the existing wireless sensor networks (WSNs), we propose an SDN-based sensor network architecture, called as software defined sensor networks (SDSN), which is composed of one centralized controller node, named as SDSN programmable controller node, on the control plane and several software-defined sensor nodes, named as SDSN programmable sensor nodes, on the data plane. The centralized controller node is configured for network control, and the sensor nodes are utilized to transfer general-purpose packets. The behavior rules of the programmable nodes in the SDSN can be reconfigured through wireless communication. Hence, the goal of this paper is to design and implement SDSN programmable controller node and SDSN programmable sensor node whose behavior can be reconfigured. We develop the programmable controller node using NanoPi and CC2530 modules, and the programmable sensor nodes using CC2530 modules. Finally, the experimental results show data acquisition and transmission in the data plane, and network centralized management in the control plane. Moreover, the experimental results demonstrate that the programmable nodes have been designed own greater flexibility and scalability compared to traditional WSN nodes.