Performance Evaluation of Link Quality Indicator of a Wireless Sensor Network in an Outdoor Environment

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) has in recent times solved the problems associated with remote sensing and monitoring. However, link quality had been the major key player in the sensing and transmission of sensed signals to remote places especially in WSN. In this work, the effects of link quality indicators in an outdoor monitoring environment were investigated. The investigation carried out helps in evaluating the performance of these indicators to the monitoring capability of WSN in linear topology system. The outdoor environment of the Digital Library of Nnamdi Azikiwe was used as the experimental testbed environment to showcase the effect of Link Quality Indicators (LQI) on the Received Signal Strength (RSS) of the sensed signals in WSN. The results obtained from the measurement carried out and the simulation show that the qualities of the RSS of the transmitted signal from the WSN play vital roles in the monitoring and detection system. It therefore can be inferred that the accuracy of the detection and monitoring of a particular environment depends squarely on the LQI of the system (environment) under study.