Design of a low-power testbed for Wireless Sensor Networks and verification

In this document the design considerations and component choices of a testbed prototype device for wireless sensor networks will be discussed. These devices must be able to monitor their physical environment, process data and assist other nodes in forwarding sensor readings. For these tasks, five basic parts are necessary in a sensor node: sensor interface, computational unit, memory, communication interface and energy source. Hardware choices for these components will be discussed, as well as an additional debugging interface. The design has been verified by implementation of a few example applications. The testbed includes a tiny preemptive real time operating system.