with prof. Gian Pietro Picco and prof. Paolo Casari
The session will begin with a presentation of the IoT Testbed facility, illustrating the overall architecture, the type of devices installed, and other present and future features.
Next, some examples of the research and applications enabled by the testbed will be illustrated by the researchers involved, with specific reference to communication and localization with UWB and mmWave radios.
Finally, Thales Alenia Space will report about concrete uses of the testbed in support of applications from the space sector (rover navigation and cubesat coordination), witnessing the versatility and broad applicability of the facility.
Laboratory description
The IoT Testbed is an experimental facility that supports research and teaching on low-power wireless networking and localization, common in Internet of Things scenarios.
You can think of the testbed as a scientific instrument, like a microscope, that however is distributed over a large area and that we use to run experiments with the systems we design.
We have 130 nodes spread over nearly 8000sqm in our university building. Each node contains a mini-computer with several ports to which different types of low-power radios can be connected.
Around the world, there are very few testbeds of this size. Ours is particular because we have several radios, including ultra-wideband (UWB) ones. These can be used for communication but also to estimate distance between devices very precisely, with an error below 10cm. UWB already appeared on smartphones and is expected to become very common, like WiFi and Bluetooth.
Moreover, we are in the process of installing also millimeter wave (mmWave) devices, also increasingly popular in IoT. The applications of all the radio technologies in the testbeds are many, e.g., including the control of robots and drones; movement analytics in sports museums, or stores; logistics and manufacturing.
Finally, the testbed is also a fantastic tool for courses, where students can experience “hands-on” the complexity of large-scale IoT wireless systems and the real-world applications they enable.