A System Architecture for Managing Complex Experiments in Wireless Sensor Networks

Several reproducible experiments are required before actual deployment of wireless sensor networks takes place if stable and predictable outcomes of protocols and data processing algorithms are desired. Considering the typical size of wireless sensor networks and the number of parameters that can be configured or tuned, conducting repeated and reproducible experiments can be both time consuming and costly. The conventional way of evaluating the performance of different protocols and algorithms under different network configurations is by changing the source code and reprogramming the testbed, which requires some effort. In this paper, we propose a traffic flow control management system that facilitates the execution of repeated experiments in an efficient and flexible way. We implemented our system on top of TinyOS for the TelosB platform and demonstrated the scope and usefulness of the system by conducting several experiments in two real testbeds.