  Sensor networks and robots are both quickly evolving fields, the union of two
fields seems inherently symbiotic. Collecting data from stationary sensors can
be time consuming task and thus can be automated by adding wireless
communication capabilities to the sensors. This proposed project takes
advantage of wireless sensor networks in remote handling environment which can
send signals over far distances by using a mesh topology, transfers the data
wirelessly and also consumes low power. In this paper a testbed is created for
wireless sensor network using custom build sensor nodes for temperature
monitoring in labs and to control a robot moving in another lab. The two
temperature sensor nodes used here consists of a Arduino microcontroller and
XBee wireless communication module based on IEEE 802.15.4 standard while the
robot has inherent FPGA board as a processing unit with xbee module connected
via Rs-2332 cable for serial communication between zigbee device and FPGA. A
simple custom packet is designed so that uniformity is maintained while
collection of data from temperature nodes and a moving robot and passing to a
remote terminal. The coordinator Zigbee is connected to remote terminal (PC)
through its USB port where Graphical user interface (GUI) can be run to monitor
Temperature readings and position of Robot dynamically and save those readings
in database.
