Link stability in a wireless sensor network - An experimental study

Abstract

Most routing protocols proposed for wireless sensor networks are based on the standard approach also used in many other types of networks, e.g. MANETS, even though the conditions are drastically different. To evaluate the usefulness of reactive routing protocols based on route discovery by flooding of route request messages it is necessary to understand the nature of the underlying wireless communication links. In this work we present the results of connectivity measurements conducted with current sensor node hardware, taking special interest in the number of unidirectional links present and the frequency of link changes. © 2012 ICST Institute for Computer Science, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering.