Escape or Exploit?: A Noise-Modulation-Based Communication Under Harsh Interference

To survive under interference is a critical requirement of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) in practical applications. At present, existing solutions can be divided into two categories: waiting in time and hopping in channels. However, the interference can be continuously in high-intensity and covers all the channels from 11 to 26 of IEEE 802.15.4. Under such harsh interference, these escaping-based methods could not work any more. To this end, we propose MoteScatter, a novel noise-modulation-based communication. It is on the basis of backscatter communication but it does not require any dedicated hardware. We implement the prototype on Tmote sky, a commercial WSN device. The transmitter in MoteScatter reflects, i.e., exploits the interference with different amplitudes to deliver information. We change the impedance of the RF antenna on Tmote sky via switching the power amplifier of CC2420 on and off. The receiver extracts the information in the reflected interference with different received signal strength values. We show that MoteScatter can communicate dependably under the harsh interference which other escaping-based protocols can not work. The reliability of MoteScatter is up to 83%. It provides a new paradigm to cope with interference in WSNs.

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