Spatial Diversity Benefits by Means of Induced Fading

Multipath fading heavily contributes to the unreliability of wireless links and is normally seen as a negative phenomenon hindering proper radio communication. However, fading can also improve the chances of reliable communication over channels that would otherwise be unusable, as our experimental evidence shows. In the context of wireless sensor networks, we show that limited motion of the base station may be used to obtain a considerable spatial diversity benefit through the exploitation of induced fading. We compare our limited mobility approach to multi-antenna systems, which are commonly used to achieve spatial diversity, and we illustrate these concepts with the help of experimental results. Moreover, we analyze how spatial diversity relates to network lifetime