Classification of Packet Transmission Outcomes in Wireless Sensor Networks

In wireless networks, it is important to determine the outcome of packet transmissions for networking protocols. In this paper, we design a transmission outcome classifier for IEEE 802.15.4 wireless networks based on received signal strength indicator and link quality indicator values. Our classifier performs loss differentiation by analyzing statistical differences between weak signal and collision losses. We implement our proposed classifier using the CC2500 RF transceiver and evaluate it experimentally. The results show that our classifier can accurately detect packet transmissions as well as distinguish wireless losses due to weak signals and multiple access collisions, with a maximum error rate of 15%. We apply the classifier to probabilistic polling, which is a MAC protocol designed for energy harvesting wireless sensor networks, and show experimentally that it is able to achieve close to or even exceed the theoretical throughput due to packet capture effect.