A Survey on the Progress of Testing Techniques and Methods for Wireless Sensor Networks

Information-centric wireless sensor networks’ test bed is of vital significance. As a novel communication model, it can effectively test and reliably assess different algorithms, protocols, and applications of wireless sensor networks before deployment. Furthermore, detecting problems, ensuring stable operations, and reducing maintenance costs can also be attained. It is a promising architecture. Through the tests of the platform, new ideas are provided for the development of wireless sensor networks of the Internet of Things (IoT) and for the improvement of the performances of the IoT. An information-centric network is a promising branch of future Internet architecture, and its naming, naming routing, and intra-network caching are also suitable for wireless sensor networks. Recently, with the integration of such different key technologies as micro-sensor, communication, and simulation, test beds are becoming increasingly heterogeneous and complicated in large scale. Because of this, it is essential to know how to build a functional test bed by using the state-of-the-art infrastructure and technologies needed, so that there will be easier access to using and obtaining accurate testing results. In this paper, first, we summarize three aspects of the heterogeneous information-centric wireless sensor networks’ test bed, including its requirements, testing technologies, and performance evaluation; second, we describe the heterogeneity of the test bed from three perspectives, including hardware resources, software resources, and communication technologies; third, we analyze the composition and implementation of each recent representative heterogeneous test bed in detail and the adequate compactness and the satisfactions of the requirements with each other; finally, we point out the open research issues on heterogeneous test bed. We found that the current development of information-centric wireless sensor networks is full of challenges.