A general test platform for Cyber-physical systems: Unmanned vehicle with wireless sensor network navigation

Abstract

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) integrate the virtual cyber world with the real physical world. Nowadays, the theories and applications of CPSs still face enormous challenges. In order to facilitate this emerging domain, a general test platform for CPSs, low-priced intelligent vehicle with Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) navigation, is designed to test and verify the proposed methods and theories. We in brief review the research progresses of CPSs, WSNs and unmanned vehicles. By means of deeply analyzing the test platform architecture and WSN navigation principle, the software and hardware of this platform are developed. The experiment results show that the resolution of wireless sensor navigation is less than 0.67m. On the basis of these, how to conduct studies from different perspectives is illustrated, and the implementation challenges are also outlined. © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.