Shepherd Nova: A Public Testbed for Rigorous Experiments Under Repeatable Energy-Harvesting Conditions

Research output: Contribution to book/Conference proceedings/Anthology/ReportConference contributionContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Kai Geissdoerfer - , Nessie Circuits (Author)
  • Ingmar Splitt - , Technische Universität Darmstadt (Author)
  • Matthias Sokolowski - , Technische Universität Darmstadt (Author)
  • Carsten Herrmann - , Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed) (Author)
  • Jonas Kubicki - , Technische Universität Darmstadt (Author)
  • Jasper De Winkel - , Delft University of Technology (Author)
  • Marco Zimmerling - , Technische Universität Darmstadt (Author)

Abstract

Public testbeds are essential for replicable experiments and meaningful comparisons on shared physical infrastructure. While many testbeds exist for battery-powered Internet of Things (IoT) systems, there is a lack of public testbeds for observing and profiling the distributed operation of energy-harvesting IoT systems, including battery-free devices. We fill this gap and present Shepherd Nova, the first public testbed designed to support experiments under repeatable energy-harvesting conditions. Shepherd Nova uses field-recorded harvesting data to supply power to devices, consistently replicating real-world spatio-temporal energy availability across multiple experiments. Its virtual power source supports diverse ambient energy sources, harvesting circuitry, and energy storage devices. Moreover, Shepherd Nova provides services like general-purpose input/output (GPIO) tracing, power profiling, and serial output logging, all of which can run synchronously and with high resolution. Sub-microsecond synchronization enables precise correlation between these observations and emulated energy-harvesting conditions, offering unprecedented insights into distributed energy-harvesting IoT systems. In this paper, we describe Shepherd Nova's design, characterize its performance, and demonstrate its capabilities through controlled experiments and an example test case. To access the testbed, documentation as well as open-source harvesting data, hardware designs, and code, visit https://testbed.nes-lab.org/.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationMobiSys 2025 - Proceedings of the 23rd ACM international Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery, Inc
Pages236-248
Number of pages13
ISBN (electronic)9798400714535
Publication statusPublished - 25 Sept 2025
Peer-reviewedYes

Conference

Title23rd ACM International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services
Abbreviated titleMobiSys 2025
Conference number23
Duration23 - 27 June 2025
Website
LocationHilton Anaheim
CityAnaheim
CountryUnited States of America

Keywords

Keywords

  • battery-free systems, distributed debugging, energy harvesting, experiments, GPIO tracing, intermittency, internet of things, power profiling, repeatability, serial logging, testbed, time synchronization