UMBRELLA: A One-stop Shop Bridging the Gap from Lab to Real-World IoT Experimentation

TL;DR

UMBRELLA addresses the challenge of evaluating IoT solutions in real-world, multi-domain environments by providing a large-scale open-access System-of-Systems testbed deployed across multiple sites. It combines heterogeneous hardware, open APIs, cloud-native microservices, and digital twins to enable end-to-end experimentation from hardware integration to edge AI deployment. The paper details the architecture, hardware and software components, security, and operation, and presents use cases including large-scale wireless, air quality sensing, street-light monitoring, robotics arena, and private 5G, along with lessons learned and future plans. The work demonstrates the potential of open, realistic IoT testbeds to accelerate research translation and cross-sector collaboration.

Abstract

UMBRELLA is an open, large-scale IoT ecosystem deployed across South Gloucestershire, UK. It is intended to accelerate innovation across multiple technology domains. UMBRELLA is built to bridge the gap between existing specialised testbeds and address holistically real-world technological challenges in a System-of-Systems (SoS) fashion. UMBRELLA provides open access to real-world devices and infrastructure, enabling researchers and the industry to evaluate solutions for Smart Cities, Robotics, Wireless Communications, Edge Intelligence, and more. Key features include over 200 multi-sensor nodes installed on public infrastructure, a robotics arena with 20 mobile robots, a 5G network-in-a-box solution, and a unified backend platform for management, control and secure user access. The heterogeneity of hardware components, including diverse sensors, communication interfaces, and GPU-enabled edge devices, coupled with tools like digital twins, allows for comprehensive experimentation and benchmarking of innovative solutions not viable in lab environments. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of UMBRELLA's multi-domain architecture and capabilities, making it an ideal playground for Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial IoT (IIoT) innovation. It discusses the challenges in designing, developing and operating UMBRELLA as an open, sustainable testbed and shares lessons learned to guide similar future initiatives. With its unique openness, heterogeneity, realism and tools, UMBRELLA aims to continue accelerating cutting-edge technology research, development and translation into real-world progress.

Figures (32)

• Figure 1: Physical and digital assets in an IoT ecosystem. The IoT platform is the centre of the digital realm.
• Figure 2: The UMBRELLA network. All nodes are installed on public lampposts across a $\sim$7.2km stretch of road and the UWE campus. The colours represent the nodes' connectivity, i.e., green is fibre-connected, blue is Wi-Fi-connected, and purple is fibre-connected and can act as a LoRa gateway.
• Figure 3: UMBRELLA SoS architecture overview with support of multiple sub-system testbeds.
• Figure 4: The interfaces for choosing an available network and creating or updating projects.
• Figure 5: The interfaces for creating an experiment. A user can upload all required files that are scanned and validated by the backend and choose a number of nodes for experimentation.