Performance of a WSN in the Presence of Channel Variations and Interference

The broadcast capacity of a wireless sensor network (WSN) is defined as the maximum rate at which the network may generate messages intended for distribution to the entire network. Broadcast capacity is limited by factors such as communication collisions and excessive queue lengths incurred under heavy loads. Collisions may be avoided through the use of communication coordination (CC), and excessive queue lengths may be avoided through information coordination (IC), ensuring that only useful messages are transmitted and stored. Our communication model takes into consideration channel variations (using Rayleigh fading) and interference due to overlapping transmissions. Any node´s transmission can potentially reach every other node in the network, provided that the received signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) at the receiver is above a certain threshold. Our results show the benefits of IC and CC as well as the tradeoffs in terms of the cost incurred when using these mechanisms.