The Triangle Metric: Fast Link Quality Estimation for Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks

Link quality estimation is a thorny problem in wireless sensor networks, because its accuracy affects the design and the efficiency of networking protocols and applications. Especially in the context of low-power wireless, estimating the link quality poses a sort of catch-22 dilemma, whereby a large number of packet samples are required to accurately estimate a channel, but only a few samples should be used due to limited energy resources. This paradox becomes even more severe in mobile wireless sensor networks, since the high variability of the medium imposes even stricter constraints on the timing in which the estimation has to be carried out. In this paper we propose the Triangle Metric, a metric that combines geometrically the information of PRR, LQI, and SNR into a robust estimator that guarantees a fast and reliable assessment of the link quality. Our evaluation shows that the triangle metric can identify the quality of links using as few as 10 packet samples, making it an eligible solution for highly mobile sensor networks.