Network Performance Evaluation based on RSSI for Inpatient Room Monitoring Application

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the network performance under indoor scenario of wireless sensor network (WSN) between sensor node acting as a client and a server according to distance variation scenario. This work is motivated with a long-term goal to realize remote inpatient room monitoring system applying wearable device. Network performance evaluation in respect to distance variation is carried out. The distance variation is to anticipate that in WSN, nodes can be static or mobile. Network performance evaluation uses three software applications namely inSSIDer, Iperf and Wireshark. Firstly, it is evaluated the distance variations to determine the estimates of network connection based on Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) for the distance of multiple of 4 meters between an access point and a sensor node starting from 0 m to 20 m. That network connection evaluation applies inSSIDer application. The results are then used to design indoor testing scenario and three schemes of network performance evaluations in term of throughput have been carried out using Iperf and Wireshark applications, namely first scheme applying Wireshark only, second scheme applying iPerf only, and third scheme applying both Wireshark and iPerf simultaneously. The testing for each scheme is then conducted to measure throughput. From the testing results, it can be analyzed distance effect on throughput network performance. The results show the consistency that the farther the location of the sending node, the smaller the signal that can be captured by the receiver, and vice versa. Furthermore, there is a throughput difference when testing is carried out using Wireshark and iPerf applications although it is not significant and both applications are feasible for local network performance test. Our network layout scenario is feasible for the indoor network scenario in supporting our long-term goal of inpatient room monitoring system.