Continuous Integration in Wireless Technology Development

Abstract

Network testing plays an important role in the iterative process of developing new communication protocols and algorithms.However, test environments have to keep up with the evolution of technology and require continuous update and redesign. In this paper, we propose COINS, a framework that can be used by wireless technology developers to enable continuous integration (CI) practices in their testbed infrastructure. As a proof-ofconcept, we provide a reference architecture and implementation of COINS for controlled testing of multi-technology 5G Machine Type Communication (MTC) networks. The implementation upgrades an existing wireless experimentation testbed with new software and hardware functionalities. It blends web service technology and operating system virtualization technologies with emerging Internet of Things technologies enabling CI for wireless networks. Moreover, we also extend an existing qualitative methodology for comparing similar frameworks and identify and discuss open challenges for wider use of CI practices in wireless technology development.

Experiment Control and Monitoring System for LOG-a-TEC Testbed

“…Wireless network development, testing, and deployment calls for testbeds supporting continuous deployment principles, which have to be adjusted to the software and hardware architecture of the particular testbed. In order to better understand the implementation of the experiment control and monitoring system (EC and MS), we briefly review the LOG-a-TEC testbed first and afterwards, the reference continuous deployment architecture is given [ 5 ], followed by highlighted deficiencies of the current solution, which motivated this work.…”

“…The WiFi module supports dual-band communications on 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. For experimentation purposes, the 2.4 GHz portion of the frequency band is used, while the 5 GHz band is applied for the infrastructure management links [ 5 ]. The experimentation node is a custom VESNA (Versatile Platform for Sensor Network Applications) device, based on the ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroller, which can run a dedicated OS (e.g., Contiki-NG and TinyOS) or custom firmware [ 22 ].…”

“…In addition, the testbed has to be remotely accessible and controlled, in order to provide access to a wide international research community. When a testbed is applied for the evaluation and testing of new devices, protocols, or applications, the testbed’s support of continuous deployment principles is of vital importance [ 5 ].…”

“…LOG-a-TEC [ 6 ], included in a Fed4FIRE+ facilities, combines outdoor and indoor heterogeneous wireless testbeds for experimentation with sensor networks and machine-type communications. It supports continuous deployment principles [ 5 ], enabling fully automated experiment execution and results collection, but the interactivity with the nodes has not been fully supported until now. The real-time control and monitoring is very important in the process of designing a software or testing process, which simplifies experiment application debugging and allows for faster comprehension of the results [ 7 ].…”

Whitelisting in RFDMA Networks

“…RFDMA networks, an increase of frame repetitions may be required to compensate packet losses, which can indeed lead to a large amount of energy dissipation. Overlapping with the Sigfox channels in the unlicensed 868 MHz, other technologies such as LoRa, IEEE 802.15.4 and proprietary also operate [23] and thus can interfere with the Sigfox network as exemplified in time slot TS-4 of Fig. 2.…”