w-iLab.t

What is w-iLab.t?

The w-iLab.t testbed is composed of two separate deployments, of which initially only the one called “w-iLab.t Zwijnaarde” will be available through the Fed4FIRE federation for the first round of open call experiments. This testbed is intended for Wi-Fi and sensor networking experimentation. It is located in Ghent and belongs to imec.

It can be found in an unmanned utility room (size: 66m x 22.5m). As opposed to the other w-Ilab deployment (called w-iLab Office) where people work and where there are also operational wireless networks (WLAN, DECT phones) installed, there is a lot less external radio interference in the Zwijnaarde deployment. At this location, hardware is hosted at 60 spots. Every spot is equipped with:

• 1 embedded PC with 2 Wi-Fi a/b/g/n interfaces and 1 IEEE 802.15.1 (Bluetooth) interface
• a custom iMinds-Rmoni sensor node with an IEEE 802.15.4 interface
• an “environment emulator” board, enabling unique features of the testbed including the triggering of repeatable digital or analog I/O events at the sensor nodes, real-time monitoring of the power consumption, and battery capacity emulation.

There are two additional possibilities in the Zwijnaarde deployment:

• A number of cognitive radio platforms (including USRPs), as well as specialized spectrum scanning engines, are available at this location. This enables state-of-the-art research in the field of cognitive radio and cognitive networking.
• A deployment with 20 mobile robots is planned for 2013. This will allow experiments to be scheduled that include up to 20 mobile nodes (similar to the 60 fixed nodes) to be operated in the environment.

 Properties

Compared to the summary figure presented before, the situation at the w-iLab.t testbed is characterized by the following properties:

• Only Zabbix is supported as a monitoring framework (not Collectd nor Nagios).
• The depicted resource w-iLab.t specific: 80 Atom-based embedded PCs with 2 Wi-Fi a/b/g/n interfaces and 1 IEEE 802.15.1 (Bluetooth) interface, a custom iMinds-Rmoni sensor node with an IEEE 802.15.4 interface and an “environment emulator” board. 20 of those 80 nodes are installed on mobile robots (Roomba). There are also 6 cognitive radio platforms (including USRPs) as well as a specialized spectrum scanning engine

Contact

Email: helpdesk@ilabt.imec.be
More details can be found at: https://doc.ilabt.imec.be/ilabt-documentation/wilabfacility.html