To facilitate advanced system research in industrial wireless sensor-actuator networks (WSANs), we have deployed a first-of-its-kind testbed on the campus of Binghamton University (State University of New York at Binghamton). This webpage serves as an overview of the testbed setup and its current deployment. It is a living webpage in the sense that it will be updated as changes to the testbed continue to be made. In the end it will serve as a source of reference for anyone using the testbed to run related experiments.

Fig. 1 shows the testbed deployment, which consists of (i) a subnetwork that connects 50 wireless devices in the Engineering Building to mimic the monitoring and control of a 3D printing factory; (ii) six subnetworks deployed on shuttle buses that circle the university campus to monitor vehicle operations; and (iii) a LoRa base station installed on the roof of the Engineering Building, connected to the central server, and that provides long-distance wireless connections to those subnetworks.

Fig. 2 50 wireless devices deployed in the Engineering Building

A subnetwork that consists of 50 wireless devices is placed throughout 22 office and lab areas in the second floor of the Engineering Building, as (i) shows in Fig. 1. Fig. 2 shows the deployment of wireless devices. The wireless device in the subnetwork is an embedded computer (i.e., Raspberry Pi 3 Model B) integrated with a TelosB mote with a TI MSP430 microcontroller and a TI CC2420 radio compatible with the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. To support experimentation and measurements, all devices in the testbed are physically connected to the central server through a wired backplane network that can be used to manage wireless experiments and measurements without interfering with wireless communication. To mimic the monitoring and control system of a 3D printing factory, 10 embedded computers are physically connected to 3D printers to monitor and control their printing processes, while the rest can replay 3D printing data traces.

Fig. 3. Example bus route

Our testbed is important for a number of reasons:

• Only few testbeds like ours exist in the world today. By being one of the first to have such a large-scale hierarchical industrial WSAN testbed that supports wireless experiments over ZigBee, WiFi, Bluetooth, and LoRa links, we will be able to conduct experiments that others have previously been unable to run. Our eventual goal is to make the testbed accessible through an user-friendly interface, opening it to researchers across the globe.
• A series of software tools has been implemented to facilitate wireless experiments. Our testbed software automates the process of programming a large number of devices in parallel, gathers statistics on network behavior during experiments, and provides information to testbed user.
• The testbed enables the experimental research on industrial WSANs. The testbed can run our implementations of a series of industrial wireless network protocols, algorithms, and systems, such as time slotted channel hopping (TSCH) and reliable graph routing, which allows us to conduct experimental research on this important class of WSANs.