A data collection mechanism for Wi-Fi based Underground sensor Networks
David Bastos da Silva Lino · Open Repository of the University of Porto (University of Porto) · 2014
Wireless Underground Networks (WUN) is an emerging research topic in the Wireless Networks field. It will enable a wide variety of applications in fields such as agriculture, border patrol, assisted navigation, sports field maintenance, intruder detection, and infrastructure monitoring. For instance, considering an agricultural scenario, deploying underground wired networks can be a complex, time-consuming task and expensive maintenance is expected. In this context the need of a WUN a network formed by a set of buried nodes communicating through a wireless link in an underground environment arises. Obtaining data efficiently from these buried nodes may pose a problem due to the asymmetry between underground-to-aboveground and aboveground-tounderground communications, and the specific characteristics of the soil medium. Recent work in this field has been oriented to dedicated sensor-network protocols as IEEE 802.15.4, and not on IEEE 802.11, which is much more widespread and cost-effective. In this dissertation we propose a novel mechanism aimed at collecting data from buried nodes to an aboveground node, using the IEEE 802.11 standard at 2.4 GHz. Simulation results performed using ns-3 show an improvement of the delay and throughput vs. the standard data collection mechanism.