RadiaLE: A framework for designing and assessing link quality estimators in wireless sensor networks

  • Authors:

  • Nouha Baccour;Anis Koubía;Maissa Ben Jamía;Denis do Rosário;Habib Youssef;Mário Alves;Leandro B. Becker

  • Affiliations:

  • ReDCAD Research Unit, University of Sfax, Tunisia and CISTER Research Unit, Polytechnic Institute of Porto (ISEP/IPP), Portugal;CISTER Research Unit, Polytechnic Institute of Porto (ISEP/IPP), Portugal and COINS Research Group, Al-Imam Mohamed bin Saud University (CCIS-IMAMU), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia;ReDCAD Research Unit, University of Sfax, Tunisia;CISTER Research Unit, Polytechnic Institute of Porto (ISEP/IPP), Portugal and Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil;Prince Research Unit, University of Sousse, Tunisia;CISTER Research Unit, Polytechnic Institute of Porto (ISEP/IPP), Portugal;Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil

  • Venue:
  • Ad Hoc Networks
  • Year:
  • 2011

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Stringent cost and energy constraints impose the use of low-cost and low-power radio transceivers in large-scale wireless sensor networks (WSNs). This fact, together with the harsh characteristics of the physical environment, requires a rigorous WSN design. Mechanisms for WSN deployment and topology control, MAC and routing, resource and mobility management, greatly depend on reliable link quality estimators (LQEs). This paper describes the RadiaLE framework, which enables the experimental assessment, design and optimization of LQEs. RadiaLE comprises (i) the hardware components of the WSN testbed and (ii) a software tool for setting-up and controlling the experiments, automating link measurements gathering through packets-statistics collection, and analyzing the collected data, allowing for LQEs evaluation. We also propose a methodology that allows (i) to properly set different types of links and different types of traffic, (ii) to collect rich link measurements, and (iii) to validate LQEs using a holistic and unified approach. To demonstrate the validity and usefulness of RadiaLE, we present two case studies: the characterization of low-power links and a comparison between six representative LQEs. We also extend the second study for evaluating the accuracy of the TOSSIM 2 channel model.