Insights into Frequency Diversity from Measurements on an Indoor Low Power Wireless Network Testbed

Recent wireless medium access control techniques, such as the Timeslotted Synchronized Channel Hopping (TSCH) and Deterministic & Synchronous Multi-channel Extension (DSME) modes in the IEEE802.15.4-2015 standard, use frequency diversity to cope with external interference and multipath fading. The result is wire-like reliability in a network built from unreliable wireless links. Yet, the impact of using multiple frequencies on the medium access control layer is still not perfectly understood, and virtually all channel hopping solutions use “blind” channel hopping, i.e., hopping over all frequencies equivalently. The goal of this work is to improve our understanding of the behavior of the wireless medium when using multiple frequencies, which will enable the design of more efficient protocols in the future. We collect a large dense connectivity dataset over the USC Tutornet Internet of Things Testbed, with dozens of low-power wireless nodes deployed in an office building. This publicly-available dataset offers complete traces of link quality across frequency, time and space. We analyze the data and extract meaningful and practical insights on the wireless medium when using multiple frequencies.