Performance enhancement in IEEE 802.15.4 wireless sensor networks by link-quality based node grouping

IEEE 802.15.4 is the most successful low-rate wireless personal area network (LR-WPAN) standard enabling the deployment of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). However, in WSNs, each node has a limited communication range and battery lifetime. Moreover, sensor nodes may be scattered over a wide area. Hence, a hidden node collision is a crucial factor affecting the overall performance of WSNs. In this letter, we propose an advanced mechanism of mitigating the hidden node collision by grouping sensor nodes according to the link-quality indicator (LQI) information.