Selecting Data Transmission Method for Sensor Networks With Deterministic Spatial Channel Properties

Wireless sensor radios are particularly prone to a radio channel impairment due to a simple communication circuitry. Persistent impairment can cause serious problems to sensors that must continuously or repeatedly reside in locations with deterministic channel properties caused by the surrounding spatial structure. Capturing such channel properties with traditional statistical models alone is cumbersome and ineffective. A new modeling framework based on receiver-measured packet error rates expressed using two surface roughness parameters, namely the amplitude and spacing parameters, is proposed to represent the key properties of a channel error profile. A case study on a rotating machine environment is presented. Experimental results confirmed the adequacy of the proposed model and the resulting improved transmission performance.