Identification of radio disturbances of wireless sensor networks

We propose a novel method to identify the sources for transmission disturbances related to radio propagation in wireless sensor networks. Especially in industrial environments there are challenges for reliability and performance. For example, dead spots indicate destructive interference caused by the signal multipath propagation. The recognition of this phenomenon during the network installation and operation, and systematic methods for network optimization, will significantly improve the data transmission quality and reliability even in difficult conditions. By computing the amplitude histograms of the received signal strength and characteristics of the histograms, we can deduce what kind of interference causes the signal degradation in radio link, i.e. interfering radio traffic or signal multipath propagation. We use software defined radio (SDR) as the receiver to capture the transmitted signal and analyze the statistical properties of the captured signal with Matlab/Simulink tools. The results show that the shape of the histograms reveals the nature of the radio channel interferences and in that way can help to choose the right actions in order to overcome the communication problems.