Site specific WLAN and WPAN coexistence evaluation

Research was sponsored by a grant from the NSF Center for Intelligent Maintenance Systems (IMS). Abstract – Evaluating coexistence between wireless local area networks and wireless personnel area networks is an important issue for determining usage policies for wireless devices that are collocated and sharing the same frequency spectrum. A method is presented for evaluating the impact Bluetooth piconets will have on IEEE 802.11b performance when collocated within a specific building layout. The method is centered on analytically evaluating the probability of collision between an 802.11b packet and packets from Bluetooth piconets. The analytical model is based on a parametric representation of the Bluetooth interference environment and a site specific propagation model used to estimate the received signal powers.