Experimental study: Link quality and deployment issues in wireless sensor networks

Abstract

In this paper, we highlight the extent of the effects of topological specificities on the deployed solutions, which can be useful to refine already proposed models as well as to carry out protocol tuning or adjustments. We present, an intensive experimental study on wireless Link Quality Indicator (LQI). Using Moteiv's Tmote Sky sensors, we deployed multiHopLQI algorithm of TinyOS in various network configurations: homogeneous and heterogeneous; straight-line and grid topologies with various transmission power levels and distances. Initially, we study LQI time-varying and try to understand the relationship between transmission power level, distance and link quality and present how some random disturbances due to external (physical changes) or internal phenomena (node movement,power variation) may affect the dynamics of the network. Later, we address impacts and side effects of position and power transmission level of some important nodes in the network like the Base Station in such LQI based algorithms. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2009.