Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Indoor Radio Propagation and Interference in 2.4 GHz Wireless Sensor Networks: Measurements and Analysis

  • Published:
Wireless Personal Communications Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), the performance and lifetime are significantly affected by the indoor propagation and the interference from other technologies using the 2.4 GHz band. Next to an overview of the propagation and coexistence issues in the literature, we present a model for analysing these effects in WSNs. We also present our measurements results on the indoor propagation, the interference of the microwave oven (MWO) and their impact on the performance of the WSN. The propagation measurements reveal significant influence of the multipath: changing a node position with a few centimetres or changing the communication channel can lead up to 30 dB difference in the received power. The power leakage of MWO has been observed around \(-\)20 dBm at 1 m distances to the oven. This leads to extra retries of the 802.15.4 messages which matches our simulation results: the packet success ratio at first try decreases to 30–40 %, which increases the average active time of the sensor, closely located to the MWO. We observe that the ON–OFF pattern of the MWO could be exploited by WSNs to improve the performance.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 13
Fig. 14
Fig. 15
Fig. 16
Fig. 17
Fig. 18

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. IEEE. (2011). Standard for local and metropolitan area networks-Part 15.4: Low-rate wireless personal area networks (LR-WPANs). IEEE Std 802.15.4-2011 (Revision of IEEE Std 802.15.4-2006).

  2. Akyildiz, I., & Vuran, M. C. (2010). Wireless sensor networks. London: Wiley.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  3. Hermans, F., Rensfelt, O., Voigt, T., Ngai, E., Norden, L., & Gunningberg, P. (2013). SoNIC: Classifying interference in 802.15.4 sensor networks. In Proceedings of the 12th ACM/IEEE conference on information processing in wireless sensor networks (IPSN).

  4. Sikora, A., & Groza, V. F. (2005). Coexistence of IEEE802.15.4 with other systems in the 2.4 GHz-ISM-Band. In Instrumentation and measurement technology conference, 2005. IMTC.

  5. Petrova, M., Wu, L., Mahonen, P., & Riihijarvi, J. (2007). Interference measurements on performance degradation between colocated IEEE 802.11g/n and IEEE 802.15.4 networks. In Networking, 2007. ICN ’07.

  6. LaSorte, N., Rajab, S., & Refai, H. (2012). Experimental assessment of wireless coexistence for 802.15.4 in the presence of 802.11g/n. In Electromagnetic compatibility (EMC). IEEE.

  7. Florwick, J., Whiteaker, J., Amrod, A. C., & Woodhams, J. (2013) Wireless LAN design guide for Hhigh density client environments in higher education. In Design guide, Cisco.

  8. Salman, N., Rasool, I., & Kemp, A. H. (2010). Overview of the IEEE 802.15.4 standards family for low rate wireless personal area networks. In Wireless communication systems (ISWCS).

  9. Simek, M., Fuchs, M., Mraz, L., Moravek, P., & Botta, M. (2011). Measurement of LowPAN network coexistence with home microwave appliances in laboratory and home environments. In BWCCA.

  10. NXP/Jennic. (2013). Application note, co-existence of IEEE 802.15.4 at 2.4 GHz application note, JN-AN-1079, v1.1.

  11. Sha, M., Hackmann, G., & Lu, C. (2013). Real-world empirical studies on multi-channel reliability and spectrum usage for home-area sensor networks. In Network and service management. IEEE.

  12. Liang, C.-J. M., Priyantha, B., Liu, J., & Terzis, A. (2010). Surviving Wi-Fi interference in low power ZigBee networks. In SenSys.

  13. Rensfelt, O., Hermans, F., Voigt, T., Ngai, E., Norden, L.-A., & Gunningberg, P. (2012). SoNIC: Classifying and surviving interference in 802.15.4-based sensor networks. Technical report.

  14. Pollin, S., Tan, I., Hodge, B., Chun, C., & Bahai, A. (2008). Harmful coexistence between 802.15.4 and 802.11: A measurement-based study. In CrownCom 2008. 3rd International conference.

  15. Jennic. (2006). Application note, calculating 802.15.4 data rates, JN-AN-1035, 2006.

  16. Jennic. (2009). Application note, wireless network deployment guidelines application note, JN-AN-1059, 2009.

  17. ITU-R Recommendations, P.1238-7: Propagation data and prediction methods for the planning of indoor radiocommunication systems and radio local area networks in the frequency range 900 MHz to 100 GHz

  18. Plets, D., Joseph, W., & Vanhecke, K. (2012). Emmeric Tanghe and Luc Martens: Coverage prediction and optimization algorithms for indoor environments. In EURASIP.

  19. Balachander, D., & Rao, T. R. (2013). RF propagation investigations at 915/2400 MHz in indoor corridor environments for wireless sensor communications. Progress in electromagnetics research, 47, 359–381.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Obayashi, S., & Zander, J. (1988). A body-shadowing model for indoor radio communication environments. IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation.

  21. Ziri-Castro, K. I., Scanlon, W. G., & Evans, N. E. (2003). Characterisation of body-shadowing effects in the indoor environment at 5.2 GHz. In High frequency postgraduate student colloquium.

  22. De Francisco, R. (2010). Indoor channel measurements and models at 2.4 GHz in a hospital. In GLOBECOM 2010.

  23. Watteyne, T. (2010). Mitigating multipath fading through channel hopping in wireless sensor networks. In Communications (ICC). IEEE.

  24. Yuan, W., Xiangyu, W., Linnartz, J. P. M. G., & Niemegeers, I. G. M. M. (2009). Experimental validation of a coexistence model of IEEE 802.15.4 and IEEE 802.11b/g networks. In IRADSN’09.

  25. Ho, M.-J., Rawles, M. S., Vrijkorte, M., & Fei, L. (2002). RF challenges for 2.4 and 5 GHz WLAN deployment and design. In WCNC2002. IEEE.

  26. Farahani, S. (2008). ZigBee wireless networks and transceivers (Chapter 8.5, pp. 257–258). Newnes.

  27. Kamerman, A., & Erkocevic, N. (1997). Microwave oven interference on wireless LANs operating in the 2.4 GHz ISM band. In PIMRC ’97, IEEE.

  28. Atmel. (2013). Application note, coexistance between ZigBee and other 2.4 GHz products. In AT02845.

  29. Gawthorp, P. et al. (1994). Radio spectrum measurements of individual microwave ovens. NTIA report 94–303-1.

  30. Huo, H., Xu, Y., Bilen, C. C., Zhang, H. (2009). Coexistence issues of 2.4 GHz sensor networks with other RF devices at home. In SENSORCOMM ’09.

  31. DECT (by ETSI). www.etsi.org/technologies-clusters/technologies/dect.

  32. Holtman, K., & van der Stok, P. (2011). Real-time routing and retry strategies for low-latency 802.15.4 control networks. In ACM SIGBED review—special issue on the 10th international workshop on real-time networks (RTN 2011).

  33. Ghare, P. H., Kothari, A. G., & Keskar, A. G. (2012). Evaluation of scalability issue of 802.15.4 MAC for body area networks. International Journal of Computer and Electrical Engineering.

  34. Ma, R., Meng, W., Chen, H.-H., & Huang, Y.-R. (2012). Coexistence of smart utility networks and WLAN/ZigBee in smart grid. In SmartGridComm. IEEE.

  35. Schwarz, R., Test & measurement product brochure \({\vert }\) 08.00 R&S\(\textregistered \) TSMW Universal Radio Network Analyzer Scanner for drive tests and I/Q streamin.

  36. Bertocco, M., Gamba, G., & Sona, A. (2008). Assessment of out-of-channel interference effects on IEEE 802.15.4 wireless sensor networks. In IMTC 2008. IEEE.

  37. Ulucinar, A. R., Korpeoglu, I., & Karasan, E. (2013). A novel measurement-based approach for modeling and computing interference factors for wireless channels. In EURASIP. Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking. doi: 10.1186/1687-1499-2013-68

  38. Lanzisera, S., & Pister, K. S. J. (2007). Theoretical and practical limits to sensitivity in IEEE 802.15.4 receivers. In ICECS 2007. IEEE.

  39. Zhang, X., & Shin, K. G. (2013). Cooperative carrier signaling: Harmonizing coexisting WPAN and WLAN devices. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking.

  40. Yuan, W., Wang, X., & Linnartz, J.-P. M. G. ( 2007). A coexistence model of IEEE 802.15.4 and IEEE 802.11b/g. In Communications and vehicular technology in the Benelux. IEEE.

  41. Tytgat, L., Yaron, O., Pollin, S., Moerman, I., & Demeester, P. (2012). Avoiding collisions between IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.15.4 through coexistence aware clear channel assessment. In EURASIP.

  42. Yi, P., Iwayemi, A., & Zhou, C. (2011). Developing ZigBee deployment guideline under WiFi interference for smart grid applications. In IEEE transactions on smart grid.

  43. Zhang, X., & Shin, K. G. (2013) Gap sense: Lightweight coordination of heterogeneous wireless devices. In INFOCOM. IEEE.

  44. Jennic. (2008). Reference manual, single-ended PCB antenna module reference manual, JN-RM-2040.

  45. Azimi-Sadjadi, B., Sexton, D., Liu, P., & Mahony, M. (2006). Interference effect on IEEE 802.15. 4 performance. In INNS.

  46. Mattheijssen, P., Herben, M., Dolmans, G., & Leyten, L. (2004). Antenna-pattern diversity versus space diversity for use at handhelds. IEEE.

  47. Halperin, D., Anderson, T., & Wetherall, D. (2008). Taking the sting out of carrier sense: Interference cancellation for wireless LANs. In ACM MobiCom. Com’08

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Dragos Mihai Amzucu & Erik Fledderus

  2. NXP Semiconductors, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Hong Li

Authors
  1. Dragos Mihai Amzucu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Hong Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Erik Fledderus
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Erik Fledderus.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Amzucu, D.M., Li, H. & Fledderus, E. Indoor Radio Propagation and Interference in 2.4 GHz Wireless Sensor Networks: Measurements and Analysis. Wireless Pers Commun 76, 245–269 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-014-1694-2

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-014-1694-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation