Exploring diversity: evaluating the cost of frequency diversity in communication and routing

As the number of wireless devices increase, the frequency spectrum becomes further congested. Deployments of wireless devices in harsh radio environments (i.e. an industrial plant) also motivates the study of alternate communication protocols that offer enough diversity to overcome interference. This work explores the use of frequency diversity to address this problem and examines its effectiveness in various environmental settings. We also examine the interplay between frequency agility at the MAC layer and route diversity in the network layer and look to understand the cost-tradeoffs in the diversity of choices offered by each layer.