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JamLab: Augmenting Sensornet Testbeds with Realistic and Controlled Interference Generation
Ref: HURRAY-TR-110708       Publication Date: 3, Jul, 2011

Abstract:
Radio interference drastically affects the performance of sensornet communications, leading to packet loss and reduced energy efficiency. As an increasing number of wireless devices operates on the same ISM frequencies, there is a strong need for understanding and debugging the performance of existing sensornet protocols under interference. Doing so requires a low-cost flexible testbed infrastructure that allows the repeatable generation of a wide range of interference patterns. Unfortunately, to date, existing sensornet testbeds lack such capabilities, and do not permit to study easily the coexistence problems between devices sharing the same frequencies. This paper addresses the current lack of such an infrastructure by using off-the-shelf sensor motes to record and playback interference patterns as well as to generate customizable and repeatable interference in real-time. We propose and develop JamLab: a low-cost infrastructure to augment existing sensornet testbeds with accurate interference generation while limiting the overhead to a simple upload of the appropriate software. We explain how we tackle the hardware limitations and get an accurate measurement and regeneration of interference, and we experimentally evaluate the accuracy of JamLab with respect to time, space, and intensity. We further use JamLab to characterize the impact of interference on sensornet MAC protocols.

Carlo Alberto Boano

,

Thiemo Voigt

,

Claro Noda

,

Marco Zuniga

,

Kay Römer

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