IEEE 802.15.4 Throughput Analysis under IEEE 802.11 Interference

It is well known that both the IEEE 802.15.4 wireless standard for low power, low data-rate sensor networks, and the IEEE 802.11 wireless local area data networks, operate in the 2.4GHz industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) band. If the networks are in physical vicinity of each other to cause packet interference, most often, it is the 802.15.4 traffic that is adversely affected given the low operational output power of 802.15.4 nodes. In this paper, we undertake a theoretical study on the effect that 802.11 nodes have on the channel utilization capacity of an 802.15.4 network. We suggest what parameters in an 802.11 network can be adjusted dynamically so as to optimize channel/bandwidth utilization of the 802.15.4 network while at the same time minimizing interference. We also present the results of MATLAB simulations of our theoretical framework.