Interference-robust packet transmission in wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) operating in 2.4 GHz ISM band may seriously experience interference from coexisting radio systems such as IEEE 802.11x wireless local area networks. In this paper, we consider improvement of transmission performance of WSNs by means of packet size adaptation in the presence of co-channel interference. We first analyze the probability of transmission failure and data throughput, and then determine the packet size to maximize the data throughput in the presence of co-channel interference. Exploiting the analytic results, we design a novel transmission scheme that can adjust the packet size in response to the change of transmission performance, maximizing the data throughput. Finally, the performance of the proposed scheme is verified by computer simulation, showing significant performance improvement over conventional schemes.