Source-Node Selection to Increase the Reliability of Sensor Networks for Building Automat

We experimentally investigate the performance of IEEE 802.15.4 radio links and their failure modes in an office building, and, based on this study, propose an adaptation mechanism to conciliate application-level reliability requirements with the underlying network-level properties. The mechanism has two aspects: the spatially-adaptive aspect, implemented through adaptively selecting one or more source nodes for each application-level data connection, and the frequency-adaptive aspect, implemented through IEEE 802.15.4 channel hopping and blacklisting. Through extensive trace-based simulations and experiments in a test network, we show that the mechanism satisfies application requirements on maximal information age as long as at least one of the potential source nodes is connected to the rest of the network, at the same time showing lower energy consumption than non-adaptively using multiple source nodes.