COSMOS is split into several domains, reserved separately. They represent physically distinct sets of hardware with specific purposes, and they cannot be sliced between users: a reservation grants exclusive use of the whole domain, because RF and network resources within a domain interfere with each other.
The recommended pattern is to develop and debug on a sandbox, then run for real on a top-tier testbed — sandboxes are smaller, easier to get, and much less affected by real-world variance.
The complete, current domain catalogue with per-domain hardware lives at Hardware → Domains. This page covers only the architectural shape.
| Tier | Examples | Character |
|---|---|---|
| Top-tier testbeds | bed (NYC outdoor), grid (NJ indoor) |
Large, heavily shared, real deployments — where results are collected |
| Sandboxes and specialised domains | sb1, sb2, sb4–sb7, sb9, indoor, minicity, weeks |
Small, focused hardware sets — where experiments are built and debugged |
| Reserved project domains | osc, accord, rrail, indigo, nebula |
Allocated to funded projects; access gated by group membership |
Regardless of size, a domain is built from the same parts:
Devices are labelled by who controls them: user-controlled (yours for the reservation), domain-level (shared services, partially configurable), and global (testbed-wide services). See the architecture overview.
COSMOS distinguishes three physical radio-node classes, most visible in the BED deployment:
| Class | Where | Typical contents |
|---|---|---|
| Large | Rooftop, multi-sector base station | Several sectors, each an SDR pair (N310 + USRP-2974) with RF front ends and antennas, plus dedicated edge servers |
| Medium | Building-side or light-pole mounted | Single microcellular sector |
| Small | Fixed or mobile | Compact nodes, including vehicular and handheld |
Resources follow a hierarchical scheme — {device_type}{n}-{sector}-{site}.{domain}.cosmos-lab.org — described in full on the naming convention page.