A Link Quality Evaluation Model in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless link quality evaluation plays an important role in the design of upper layer protocols for wireless sensor networks applications. The packets reception ratio is a typical way of the evaluation; however, it needs a larger number of hello packets. This paper firstly investigates the existing typical link evaluation metrics in wireless sensor networks based on the platform of MicaZ which is developed by Crossbow Company, then takes link quality indication as the evaluation metric to experimentally study the characteristics of wireless link. According to the statistic analysis of large amount of sampling values, a link evaluation model based on Gauss distribution is brought forward and it is validated by some tests, the result shows that, link quality indication based evaluation model can evaluate the linkpsilas quality correctly based on lower energy consumption. This research is expansible, therefore, the established link evaluation model can provide guidance for application, and also can provide valuable references for the simulation research of upper layer protocols.