ACT2: Lab-Scale Actuated Sensing Testbeds

Actuation in sensor networks, in the form of the ability change position and orientation of sensor nodes or their components, has emerged as a critical element in coping with deployment uncertainties and run-time dynamics, and in improving performance and efficiency. To facilitate research on algorithms that manage and exploit actuation and applications that benefit from it, CENS has developed a variety of sensor node platforms with novel actuation capabilities. These platform range from those designed for field deployment such as the NIMS node and the Pacbot data mule) to those designed for lab-scale low-cost experimentation using hardware-in-loop emulation. In this poster we describe three of the lab-scale actuation-capable sensor node platforms that have been developed at the Center.