Impact of orientation and wire placement on received signal strengths

Many radio transceivers provide an instantaneous measure of radio-frequency (RF) energy through their received signal strength indicator (RSSI) output. Applications of this measurement include media access control (MAC), e.g., implemented as listen-before-talk (LBT), and location estimation. Factors both internal and external to wireless devices may significantly impact these measurements, and much work involving RSSI measurements glosses over this fact. This paper explores how three specific factors, (a) (omnidirectional) antenna orientation, (b) node orientation, and (c) node wire position, impact RSSI measurements. The results show a significant impact for both node orientation and node wire position and an insignificant impact for (omnidirectional) antenna orientation.

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