Improving Quality of Service in a Mesh Network Using Age of Information

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are a field of growing interest, particularly in the area of smart sensors. These smart sensors can operate in areas with little to no preexisting infrastructure, and can transmit data that have varying quality of service (QoS) requirements. For these types of networks of battery operated sensors, it can be beneficial for the sensors to intelligently transmit information to avoid sending obsolete data. Firstly, excessive transmissions needlessly uses the limited battery power available, and secondly, this can lead to excessive packet collisions with other sensors, reducing network data rates. Age of Information (AoI) is a useful design tool as it allows for quantifying the effectiveness of transmission strategies. In this work, we implemented AoI as a metric for evaluating the performance of a custom long range, low power mesh network. We show that changes in queuing strategy using AoI concepts allowed for more up-to-date information on periodic measurements, with fewer transmissions. In addition, we demonstrate that priority strategies can allow networks to specify which messages can and cannot be rendered obsolete.