The effect of human activites on 2.4 GHz radio propagation at home environment

As the technology evolves, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) for home environment, such as healthcare systems, can be designed using low-cost, low-power and short-range radio equipments in 2.4 GHz ISM Frequency-band. While a great deal of efforts have been paid for studying the radio fading caused by human body in WLAN or cellular-systems, however, the comprehensive effects of the human mobility on WSNs radio propagation for indoor environment remain unexplored widely. In this paper, we investigate the effects of human activities on the radio propagation of wireless sensor networks at home, based on the experimental measurements. Our results show that these factors have significantly effect on the receive radio signal strength. We also propose an improved radio propagation model to characterize the mobility of people for the effects of indoor radio propagation of wireless sensor networks. As an example, the random way point model is employed as the mobility model. The evaluation results show that our model performs better coherence with the measurement results.