An empirical link-quality analysis for wireless sensor networks

Wireless Sensor networks (WSNs) are composed of small hardware devices that possess the ability to measure and exchange a variety of environmental data. In this paper, we measured the radio characteristics of IEEE 802.15.4 for wireless sensor networks. The system is mainly composed of mobile and static ZigBee nodes, which are deployed on the underground mine galleries. Based on measured data, we describe the link characteristics such as received signal strength, latency and throughput for different scenarios. We consider the impact of these findings on the design of WSN for monitoring applications in underground mines.