Measurements in harsh RF propagation environments to support performance evaluation of wireless sensor networks

Abstract

We describe methods for evaluating the performance of wireless devices such as wireless sensors in harsh radio environments. We describe how measurements of real-world propagation environments can be used to support the evaluation process. We then present representative measurement data from high-multipath environments where sensor networks are likely to be deployed: a fixed-infrastructure, process-control environment, here an oil refinery, and a heavy industrial environment, here an automotive assembly plant. The data are from an extensive set of studies carried out by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology to provide open-literature data on radio-wave propagation over a wide frequency band in difficult radio-communication environments, including those with high loss and/or high multipath.

Modelo para Simulação Realista de Redes de Sensores sem Fio Industriais

“…Em [13] foram descritas medições de propagação em ambientes industriais, visando avaliar fatores ambientais que influenciam na qualidade do canal, como a geometria do ambiente e as características dos objetos existentes no ambiente. O espalhamento de atraso eficaz para altas frequências (exemplo: 2,4 GHz) foi de 80 ns no pior caso.…”

Radio-Wave Propagation Into Large Building Structures—Part 2: Characterization of Multipath

“…The latter was discussed in detail in [5] with respect to the use of single-frequency statistics to classify channels. The oil refinery was also discussed in [28] and [29] as part of overviews on the difficulties faced by public-safety practitioners and wireless sensor networks, respectively, in high-multipath environments. Here, we discuss how a combination of the metrics above can help to identify classes of propagation environments that may be important to the emergency response community.…”

Industrial wireless sensor networks: channel modeling and performance evaluation

“…However, in harsh industrial environments, wireless communication systems are also subject to impulsive noise [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. The major sources of impulse noise in industrial environments are motors, heavy machineries, ignition systems, inverters, voltage regulators, electric switch contacts, welding equipments, etc.…”

“…Radio frequency (RF) measurement results of industrial WSNs are reported in [6,[12][13][14]. In http://jwcn.eurasipjournals.com/content/2012/1/297 [15], the path loss and the root mean square delay spread of the signal in industrial environment were investigated.…”