Modeling packet loss rate of IEEE 802.15.4 links in diverse environmental conditions

Modeling and prediction of Packet Loss Rate (PLR) of wireless links using hardware information is essential for the design of higher-layer protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks. While many previous studies revealed the spatio-temporal variation of various link quality metrics, how environment impacts on the mapping between PLR and hardware indicators still remains unclear. Without a comprehensive understanding of such environmental impact, the acquired empirical PLR models are severely limited to specific scenarios. In this paper, we present the results of indoor and outdoor experimental campaigns focusing on the impact of various environmental factors (e.g., obstacles, human activities, climate conditions) on the dependency between the link PLR, signal to noise ratio (SNR) and packet length. Rich observations are made on the spatio-temporal characteristics of the PLR-SNR relationship and our analysis shows that link PLR can be modeled, in all experimented scenarios, as an exponential function of SNR and packet length with two model parameters that may vary over space and time. Besides, implications of the observations are summarized, providing guidelines to construct and adapt PLR models in different environments.