Channel allocation strategies for wireless sensors statically deployed in multipath environments

This work presents several channel allocation strategies that utilize in situ fading measurements obtained from node RSSI data. The strategies take advantage of current frequency agile radio designs and consider both single and multiple frequency allocations along with nodal connectivity requirements. The techniques are demonstrated on real-world data for an in-vehicle wireless sensor application. The hardware platform utilized is MicroStrain´s V-Link wireless sensors along with a MicroStrain USB base station, configured for operation in the 902-928 MHz frequency band. The key contributions of the work are twofold. First, the developed strategies are computationally simple and thus can be implemented on existing node microcontrollers. Second, the fading measurement methodology utilizes the sensor nodes themselves to effectively provide distributed scalar, network analyzer functionality. This technique is referred to as wireless sensors, sensing wireless (WSSW)