Title: Design and implementation of a transmission protection protocol to improve the performance of wireless sensor networks in hybrid networks

Authors: Jang-Ping Sheu; Shu-Hsun Wu; Chuang Ma; Wei-Kai Hu

Addresses: Department of Computer Science, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, 30013, Taiwan ' Department of Computer Science, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, 30013, Taiwan ' Department of Computer Science, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, 30013, Taiwan ' Department of Computer Science, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, 30013, Taiwan

Abstract: In hybrid networks, the devices of Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) will interfere with each other when working in a same area because they use the same band, 2.4 GHz. With the greater transmission power and more aggressive channel access time resolution, WLANs often affect the communication of WSNs severely. To eliminate this kind of interference effect, we design protection nodes and propose a transmission protection protocol, WSNs Transmission Protection Protocol (WTPP), to improve the transmission performances of WSNs in hybrid networks. The protection nodes can emit protection signal periodically to block the traffic of WLANs and permit the transmission of WSNs. We implement WTPP in a hybrid network testbed to prove its feasibility. Comparing with legacy ZigBee, the experimental results show that WTPP can improve the packet delivery ratio of WSNs efficiently under the interference of WLANs. When WSNs work on low duty cycle, the throughput degradation of WLANs is less than 6%.

Keywords: hybrid networks; transmission protection; WLANs; wireless LANs; local area networks; WSNs; wireless sensor networks; network performance; protection nodes; packet delivery ratio; throughput degradation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAHUC.2014.066418

International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing, 2014 Vol.17 No.4, pp.244 - 253

Received: 19 Apr 2013
Accepted: 29 May 2013
Published online: 19 Dec 2014 *

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