An interference mitigation scheme for IEEE 802.15.4 networks under IEEE 802.11b/g interference

IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.15.4 are two of the main standards for wireless communications and networking in the unlicensed 2.4GHz band. Coexistence of devices functioning on these standards is imperative in scenarios such as smart homes, wireless body area networks etc. However, interference of one standard over the other has to be alleviated in order to coexist. In this paper, we propose a framework that serves a two-fold purpose. It provides an experimental methodology to infer WiFi interference through packet delivery ratio and RSSI measurements. Then it provides an algorithm for coexistence that run on Zigbee nodes to detect the presence of a WiFi interferer and accordingly switch to a non overlapping channel. Performance evaluation of the proposed coexistence mechanism across a pair of IEEE 802.15.14 receiver and sender yielded 73% reduction in the packet loss and 116% increase in packet delivery ratio when compared to no mechanism present.