EAPSI: Investigating the Performance of Data Dissemination Protocols in Urban Outdoor Wireless Sensor Networks

Wright Kwame-Lante, Laurelton NY

Investigators

Abstract

This award supports research to study the performance of wireless sensor network data dissemination protocols in an urban outdoor environment. Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) provide the ability to gather an unprecedented amount of information about our environment. They have been employed for a variety of applications including structural health and habitat monitoring. There is growing interest in utilizing wireless sensor networks in the study of urban sustainability, as a means to measure air quality and its effects on people and the environment. However, the rich streams of data required by this application area place a high demand on the underlying network protocols; protocols that were designed specifically for use in an indoor environment. The wireless channel characteristics of an indoor environment can differ significantly from an outdoor one, and hence motivates this study. Experiments will be conducted in Clementi, Singapore on an urban outdoor testbed built and maintained by Dr. Mun Choon Chan and the Communication and Internet Research Lab at the National University of Singapore (NUS). The results of this study will be used to propose and develop enhancements to improve the performance of existing protocols outdoors. The focus of this study will be on WSNs utilizing 2.4 GHz radios based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, which are the most common for this type of network. There are a variety of published protocols that have been designed for WSNs, including Glossy and Splash. Such protocols have been developed and analyzed indoors, since indoor testbeds, such as Motelab and Indriya, are more common. However, the performance of these protocols has not been assessed in an urban outdoor environment. There are two techniques utilized by these dissemination protocols that will be focus of this study, namely channel hopping, a technique designed to exploit the lack of correlation between different channels in a wireless network, and transmitter density diversity, a technique where the potential for constructive interference between devices is exploited to improve the reliability of a communication link. This study will assess the suitability of these two techniques for an urban outdoor environment. This NSF EAPSI award is funded in collaboration with the National Research Foundation in Singapore.