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Deployment Considerations for Reliable Communication in Wireless Sensor Networks

Authors:
Tsenka Stoyanova
Fotis Kerasiotis
George Papadopoulos

Keywords: WSN deployment; wireless communication; RSS; signal propagation model

Abstract:
When deployed in the real-world, many sensor nodes fail to deliver the expected data or deliver a small percentage of them. The reasons for such failures can be hardware problems, software problems or communication problems. Among the communication problems is the insufficient received signal strength (RSS), which may cause unsuccessful packets delivery. For that reason, during the predeployment phase the RF propagation must be considered for predicting the RSS so that it guarantees reliable connectivity level. The present work is devoted to study of the deployment factors and requirements, which can ensure reliable communication links among the sensor network nodes. Subsequently, they are considered by the proposed RF signal propagation-based connectivity algorithm (RFCA). RFCA utilizes an outdoor RF signal propagation model for predicting the RSS in the positions, where sensor nodes are supposed to be deployed. Several factors are considered during RSS prediction, namely RF frequency, transmission power, transmitter–receiver distance, height from the ground and antenna’s characteristics (gain, polarization, orientation, etc.). Different outdoor propagation models are discussed and analyzed with respect to their applicability to RSS prediction. Finally, an example illustrates that RFCA is able to find the most appropriate, from the communication point of view, deployment parameters (height, distance, and transmission power) for positioning the sensor nodes in outdoor environment.

Pages: 158 to 169

Copyright: Copyright (c) to authors, 2010. Used with permission.

Publication date: September 5, 2010

Published in: journal

ISSN: 1942-2644