Experimental study of the effects of Transmission Power Control and Blacklisting in Wireless Sensor Networks

Dongjin Son, Bhaskar Krishnamachari, and John Heidemann
USC/Information Sciences Institute

Abstract

We experimentally investigate the impact of variable transmission power on link quality, and propose variable power link quality control techniques to enhance the performance of data delivery in wireless sensor networks. This study extends the state of the art in two key respects: first, while there are a number of previous results on power control techniques for wireless ad hoc and sensor networks, to our knowledge nearly all of them have been simulation or analytical studies that assume idealized link conditions; second, while there are several recent experimental studies that have shown the prevalence of non-ideal unreliable communication links in sensor networks, these have not thoroughly investigated the impact of variable transmission power. We perform a systematic set of experiments to analyze how transmission power changes affect the quality of low power RF wireless links between nodes. These experiments show how significant variation in link qualities occur in real-world deployments and how these effects strongly influence the effectiveness of transmission power control. We then present a packet-based transmission power control mechanism that incorporates blacklisting to enhance link reliability while minimizing interference. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme is demonstrated via testbed experiments.

Availability

This paper is available in several formats: abstract web page with pointers and cites, PDF, paper copies can be obtained by mail to the authors. Copyright terms for this paper appear below.

Reference

Son04a
Dongjin Son, Bhaskar Krishnamachari, and John Heidemann. Experimental study of the effects of Transmission Power Control and Blacklisting in Wireless Sensor Networks. In Proceedings of the First IEEE Conference on Sensor and Adhoc Communication and Networks , pp. 289-298. Santa Clara, California, USA, IEEE. October, 2004. <http://www.isi.edu/~johnh/PAPERS/Son04a.html>.
@inproceedings{Son04a,
	author = "Dongjin Son and Bhaskar Krishnamachari and John Heidemann",
	title = "Experimental study of the effects of Transmission Power Control and Blacklisting in Wireless Sensor Networks",
	booktitle = "Proceedings of the First {IEEE} Conference on Sensor and Adhoc Communication and Networks ",
	year = "2004",
	publisher = "{IEEE}",
	address = "Santa Clara, California, USA",
	month = "October",
	pages = "289--298",
	keywords = "blacklisting, power transmission control,
                         sensor network",
	url = "http://www.isi.edu/~johnh/PAPERS/Son04a.html",
	pdfurl = "http://www.isi.edu/~johnh/PAPERS/Son04a.pdf",
	copyrightholder = "{IEEE}",
}

Copyright

This paper is copyright © 2004 by IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.