Testing wearable IoT applications through sensor virtualization

Abstract

The development of distributed IoT applications requires the integration of data provided by different sensors embedded in multiple devices. As an example, an application for health monitoring in an assisted living scenario may include several wearable and fixed nodes each carrying different sensors and running specific code. Verifying that the application is properly working according to the specifications requires assessing that the code of each node behaves consistently in all the possible use cases. Tests involving sensor data may be difficult or costly to replicate realistically and this could also slow down the development of the application in its early stages. In this paper we introduce a tool that allows developers of IoT distributed applications to test the interoperability of code running on heterogeneous IoT devices through sensor virtualization. We show the feasibility of the approach in a case study of an application involving a wearable device and a single-board computer connected through Bluetooth Low Energy.