WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS AND MOBILE COMPUTING

Wirel. Commun. Mob. Comput. 2012; 12:1481–1492

Published online 29 December 2010 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/wcm.1089

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Interference mitigation in WSN by means of

directional antennas and duty cycle control
Kamil Staniec* and Grzegorz Debita
Institute of Telecommunications, Teleinformatics and Acoustics, Wroclaw University of Technology, Wroclaw, Poland

ABSTRACT
Network spanning algorithms, such as ZigBee-native and Stojmenovič, constitute a crucial element in the wireless sensor
network design, by determining its potential for reliability and fault-tolerance. The interconnections between nodes have a
great impact on the radio interference level present in such a network and may create a serious electromagnetic compatibility
issue in some cases. It can be proved that the total interference incurred by a statistical node can be diminished in two ways:
either by using directional antennas or by setting an upper limit on the duty cycle of each network node. Copyright © 2010
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
KEYWORDS
sensor network; SNIR; interference; directional antennas
*Correspondence
Kamil Staniec, Institute of Telecommunications, Teleinformatics and Acoustics, Wroclaw University of Technology, Wroclaw, Poland.
E-mail: kamil.staniec@pwr.wroc.pl

1. INTRODUCTION combat interferences from adjacent cells (for further read-

Since wireless sensor networks (WSN) have now been
being widely used, a new sort of problems has arisen. Apart
from issues regarding topology creation, efficient routing
procedures, sensing elements, etc. a strong attention must
be paid to the increasing density of sensor nodes (see also
Ref. [1]) in many networks, which may lead to excessive
interference issues. The problem concerns networks that
gather information from a specified area with random dis-
tribution of transmitting nodes operating at the same radio
frequency. Interference issues in WSN are not a novelty
[2--7], however, in this paper two other aspects have been
addressed, which have not been investigated elsewhere. The
first aspect is the duty cycle (DC) with which sensor nodes
operate in the network; its values spanning from nearly
0% (for sporadic transmissions) to 100% (for continuous
transmissions). The latter can be treated as a worst-case
scenario and should occur (if at all) occasionally in
bursts. However, one may easily imagine situations where
simultaneous transmissions from multiple (even all) nodes
occur -- for instance, when alert information about some
emergency circumstances on a vast area needs (such as
fire) to be immediately transferred to the sink node for
countermeasure decisions.
The second aspect discussed here is the application of
directional antennas in the transmitting sensor modules; a
well-known solution in, e.g., cellular networks planning to
ing refer to Refs. [8,9]). The authors have demonstrated that
at a slightly augmented production costs associated with
equipping existing sensor nodes with directional antennas
and implementing beam-tracking (or -- switching) func-
tionality, one may remarkably improve the transmission
performance of the sensor network.
2. INTRODUCTION TO ZIGBEE
SYSTEM (IEEE 802.15.4)
Out of the multiplicity of candidate solutions for effective
creation of sensor networks is the ZigBee standard based on
IEEE 802.15.4 specification [10]. It defines a low-cost, low-
range, power-saving system allowing data rates -- depending
on the frequency band, of 20, 40, and up to 250 kbits/s
and almost inexhaustible number of network nodes (typ-
ically 16 bits allocated for addressing with or 64 bits using
extended addresses). It has been defined in three separate
bands with 27 distinct channels defined therein, as given in
Tables I and II.
Depending on the application requirements, an IEEE
802.15.4 low-rate wireless personal area network (LR-
WPAN) may operate in either of two topologies [10]: the
star topology (Figure 1) or the peer-to-peer topology (Fig-
ure 2). In the star topology communication is established
between devices and a single central controller, called the

Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 1481

Interference mitigation in wireless sensor networks K. Staniec and G. Debita

Table I. Channels definitions in ZigBee.

A peer-to-peer network can be ad hoc, self-organizing,
Frequency k-th channel and self-healing. It may also allow multiple hops to route
band (MHz) Channels (k) definition (MHz) messages from any device to any other device on the net-
work. Such functions can be added at the higher layer, but
868.0--808.6 k=1 Fk = 863.3
are not part of the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. Two different
902--928 k = 1, 2, . . . , 10 Fk = 906 + 2(k−1)
device types can participate in an IEEE 802.15.4 network;
2400--2483.5 k = 11, 12, . . . , 26 Fk = 2405 + 5(k−11)
a full-function device (FFD) and a reduced-function device
(RFD). The FFD can operate in three modes serving as
a personal area network (PAN) coordinator, a coordina-
tor, or a device. An FFD can talk to RFDs or other FFDs,
while an RFD can talk only to an FFD. An RFD is intended
for applications that are extremely simple, such as a light
switch or a passive infrared sensor; they do not have the
need to send large amounts of data and may only asso-
ciate with a single FFD at a time. Consequently, the RFD
can be implemented using minimal resources and memory
capacity.
As will be treated in detail in later sections, the peer-to-
peer topology beside offering network scaling advantages
does not account for two problems: the network survivabil-
Fig. 1. Star topology example in ZigBee. ity/fault tolerance and mutual radio interference. As for the
first problem, ZigBee offers no inherent feature (see Section
PAN coordinator. The peer-to-peer topology also has a 3) guaranteeing each node to have at least two other nodes
PAN coordinator; however, it differs from the star topology as candidates for connections (compare, for instance, with
in that any device may communicate with any other device Figure 2 where failure of almost any node would cause the
as long as they are in range of one another. Peer-to-peer entire extended structure to break up into separate discon-
topology allows more complex network formations to be nected parts). As for the second problem, it will be shown in
implemented, such as mesh networking topology. 9 and 10 that this native neighbor-searching (i.e., network
Applications such as industrial control and monitoring, spanning) mechanism may lead to the generation of severe
WSN, asset, and inventory tracking, intelligent agriculture, radio interference, especially in high-density and high DC
and security would benefit from such a network topology. sensor networks.

Table II. Basic ZigBee (IEEE 802.15.4) parameters [10].

Frequency (MHz) BW (MHz) Data rate (kbits/s) Receiver sensitivity (dBm) SNIR (dB) @1%PER

868--868.8 0.6 20 −85 Not specified

905--928 2 40
2400--2483.5 2 250 5--6

Fig. 2. Peer-to-peer topology example in ZigBee.

1482 Wirel. Commun. Mob. Comput. 2012; 12:1481–1492 © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/wcm
K. Staniec and G. Debita
Fig. 3. A result of LMST network formation with four subnets.
3. IEEE 802.15.4 (ZIGBEE) LOCAL
MINIMUM SPANNING TREE
ALGORITHM
From the two general topologies for ZigBee networks intro-
duced in Section 2 two further topologies can be derived,
namely the mesh and tree, which gives altogether four
possibilities regarding the network structure. The topology
determines the spanning method to be chosen by a designer,
which in turn impacts the system functionality. The most
commonly implemented methods for ZigBee are the min-
imum spanning tree (MST) and local MST algorithms
(LMST), optimal due to a low-computational complexity
and energetic efficiency (for more details see). Both are
considered to be heuristic method for a fast network form-
ing. Out of these two, the LMST is more frequently used
since it allows to span the network without prior knowledge
of the whole network state (although, as will be shown in
Sections 8 and 9, both algorithms perform very similarly as
regards intra-network interference issues).
Both methods have one feature in common -- it is the pres-
ence of the PAN coordinator(s) to initiate the formation of
the network. In LMST (typical for ZigBee applications),
however, the formation process starts in a few points of
the unorganized network independently (nodes 8, 17--19
in Figure 3) -- several FFD’s start a network spanning
routine to create connections in a star-topology around
themselves (hence ‘local’ in the algorithm name). Once all
the local stars have been created, connections are made
between these local individual stars to span the whole
network.
Wirel. Commun. Mob. Comput. 2012; 12:1481–1492 © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/wcm
Interference mitigation in wireless sensor networks
Fig. 4. A result of MST network formation with a basic listen
window.
4. STOJMENOVIC MINIMUM
SPANNING TREE ALGORITHM
Out of multiple concepts of modeling and building the
WSN topology (as in Refs. [11,12]) some of the most pop-
ular ones are those described by Stojmenovič [13], initially
intended for military applications. These include: MST,
LMST, relative neighbor graph (RNG), Gabriel’s graph
(GG), Delaunay triangulation (DT) and partital Delaunay
triangulation (PDT).
The MST algorithm was chosen (for comparative pur-
poses with LMST described in Section 3) as the most
relevant to WSN design due to its outstanding energetic effi-
ciency (a strategic parameter in WSN) and fault-tolerance.
The MST algorithm starts with the PAN coordinator
broadcasting a beacon message heralding a new network
formation, which is to announce that a new network is about
to be created. Soon after this broadcast the PAN coordina-
tor enters the listening mode to hear incoming response
calls from nodes within the radio audible range. The suc-
cessfully received calls are being collected for the duration
of the, so-called, listen window which -- depending on the
manufacturer -- lasts for a few up to several seconds (val-
ues experimentally measured by the authors with the use
of the Daintree Sensor Network Analyzer Software 100A,
Prof. Edition -- a commercial software for ZigBee networks
analysis). Now, after forming connections to the PAN coor-
dinator each connected node performs the same searching
routine to find nodes of its own neighbor set (further away
from the PAN coordinator) and which have not connected
to the PAN coordinator upon the primary broadcast. Those
nodes that respond within the listen window are recruited
as neighbors. The procedure then continues throughout all
the nodes in the entire area until eventually the minimum
(global) spanning tree is formed (Figure 4).
1483
Interference mitigation in wireless sensor networks
Fig. 5. A result of MST neighbor formation with a doubled listen
window.
It is assumed that the nodes which respond the fastest will
be those that lie the closest to the broadcasting node, thus
they may be considered as minimum-pathloss connections
as compared to the calls that arrived after the listen window.
Algorithms with a small (basic) window form a network
initial structure. It is obvious that if the listen window is
prolonged by a multiple of the basic listen window duration,
more nodes will join in, thus forming redundant connections
(referred to as a neighbor set). Based on this assumption,
the topology-creating algorithms can be divided into two
groups:
(1) Those with a small listen window.
(2) Those with a large listen window (i.e., a multiple of
the small/basic listen window).
The multiple by which the basic listen window is to be
extended is heuristic since neither distances between net-
work nodes are known, nor are their geographical locations.
In Ref. [13] it is shown that the listen window size may be
extended up to three time the basic size in order to achieve
satisfactory level of redundancy (and hence the network
reliability and fault tolerance). It is shown in Figure 5 how
the network structure of connections changes by doubling
the basic window, as compared with the small-window case
in Figure 4.
It should, however, be also noticed that there is a par-
ticular feature that may be potentially threatening. Namely,
the algorithm enables connections that intersect other con-
nections, e.g., pairs (1, 2) and (3, 14) in Figure 5. In radio
communications avoidance of such a situation is a strongly
recommended practice, especially if directional antennas
are used to reduce interference (see a notice on this issue
in Section 6). Another issue worth mentioning is that since
with an extended listen window most nodes have redundant
connections, it is a purely random matter which of them
will be chosen for transmission of a current packet.
1484 Wirel. Commun. Mob. Comput. 2012; 12:1481–1492 © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
K. Staniec and G. Debita
For example, the node 16 in Figure 5 may choose to trans-
mit via nodes 12, 13, or 18. The greatest transmit power
(mind the energy consumption) would, of course, be neces-
sary if the link 12 were selected and this may happen with
a 33% probability since all links in the neighbor set are
equally probable.
If the transmit power cannot be further increased (e.g.,
a maximum has been reached), one must account for the
received signal strength S at node no. 12 being much lower
than if the transmission were directed to nodes 13 or 18.
As will be presented in 6, the ratio between S and the sum
in all other nodes’ emissions (plus noise) cannot decrease
below a threshold value defined by a standard (5 dB here)
for successful transmission. Therefore, it is very desirable
to achieve as high level of S as possible since interference
will definitely not decrease with distance.
5. PROPAGATION MODELING IN
WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS
As is stated in Ref. [10]: ‘a well-defined coverage area does
not exist for wireless media because propagation character-
istics are dynamic and uncertain. Small changes in position
or direction may result in drastic differences in the signal
strength or quality of the communication link. These effects
occur whether a device is stationary or mobile, as mov-
ing objects may impact station-to-station propagation.’ This
statement holds true, especially if one remembers that there
exists no universal propagation model fitting all possible
environments.
In the presented work it is assumed that nodes are dis-
tributed in an open-space area, attached to low-height masts.
It can be derived that for such a scenario the pathloss L
exhibits a two-slope (a TS model) characteristics given
by Equation (1). Figure 6 depicts the received power Pr
attenuated by L with the distance from the transmitter in
the TS model (plotted for the antenna heights of h1 = 5 m
and h2 = 10 m, for better visualization of signal fades at
these heights than at those accepted in simulations, namely
h1 = h2 = 1.5 m; Figure 6).
This phenomenon can be explained by observing that
if only two waves are considered, i.e., the direct and the
ground-reflected one, at distances close to the transmitter
their respective phase differences upon reception will cause
the received signal to be either strengthened (if they arrive
in-phase) or faded (if in counter phase). After some point
(called a breakpoint dbrk ) and further, the respective phase
difference between both waves never exceeds π/2 hence
both diminish monotonously. In the discussed case where
h1 = h2 = 1.5 m and λ = 12.25 cm the breakpoint distance
equals 231 m.


32.45 + 20 logfMHz + 20 logdkm d ≤ dbrk
L= (1)
20 log(h1 h2 /d 2 ) d > dbrk
In the ongoing investigations the 2.4 GHz industrial, sci-
entific, medical (ISM) band has been chosen since 868 MHz
DOI: 10.1002/wcm
K. Staniec and G. Debita
Fig. 6. TS propagation characteristics.
Fig. 7. General interference scenario for ZigBee.
offers limited performance capabilities (low-data rates) and
only a single channel whereas 915 MHz band is unavailable
for license-exempt applications in Europe.
6. INTERFERENCE CALCULATION
IN WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS
Interference in WSN (see Figure 7) occurs mainly because
even if direct line-of-sight directions between communicat-
ing nodes are not interfered, radio modules in the nodes can
still hear transmissions from other nodes due to (most usu-
ally) omni-directional antennas installed in them. The use
of directional radiators could aid the situation by constrain-
ing emissions/receptions in only specified directions. Such
Wirel. Commun. Mob. Comput. 2012; 12:1481–1492 © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/wcm
Interference mitigation in wireless sensor networks
a solution, however, would require some sort of adaptive
antenna system to be installed on board each transmitting
node. Now, every time a new packet were to be sent, a neigh-
bor node would be randomly selected out of the predefined
set and the main lobe of transmitting antenna would switch
its direction in order to concentrate its energy toward the
selected neighbor.
The goal of the research was to study the standard
network-spanning algorithms with respect to intra-network
interference induced by them. For this purpose a mathe-
matical model has been proposed and implemented as a
software for calculating mutual interference levels expe-
rienced by each node in the network. As for modeling
propagation losses a simple TS model has been proposed for
the radio signal attenuation between communicating nodes.
It is considered a better-suited solution for low-height sen-
sor antennas since the pathloss formula proposed in Ref.
[10] for LR-WPAN systems seems to be too static and opti-
mistic (as was demonstrated in Refs.[14,15]). In this model,
the propagation losses follow a 20 dB per decade fade before
the breakpoint distance, dbrk , and 40 dB per decade after.
The radio technology behind these investigations is IEEE
802.15.4, commercially known as ZigBee.
Depending on the world region and required data rate,
ZigBee may operate in different modes. These are specified
in Table II (based on Ref. [10]) together with some other key
system parameters to be accounted for in signal-to-noise-
interference ratio (SNIR) calculations. The signal-to-noise
and interference for the k-th node is given by Equation (2),
where S is the desired signal power in (W), kB the Boltz-
man’s constant in (J/K), T the ambient temperature in (K),
BW the channel bandwidth in (Hz), NF the noise factor, M is
the total number of network nodes, whereas the last term in
the denominator denotes the sum of radiations from all other
nodes in the network (excluding, of course, the radiation
from the k-th node for which SNIR is being calculated).
 
S
SNIRk |[dB] = 10 log  
N+ Ik
k
 
S
= 10 log   (2)
kB · T · BW · NF + Im
M/(k)
According to Ref. [10], ZigBee transmitters are expected
to operate at powers between −3 and 10 dBm, with 0 dBm
being typical for 2.4 GHz ISM band (refer to Table II). A
compliant device shall be capable of achieving a sensitivity
of −85 dBm or better. Although no specific requirements
can be found in Ref. [10] on SNIR for sub-gigahertz ZigBee
implementations, of major concern is the ISM-band version
(most common).
For the purpose of comparison between the two network
spanning algorithm a software simulator has been created
comprising of two components:
1485
Interference mitigation in wireless sensor networks
Fig. 8. An example of connections in a WSN (Stojmenovič
algorithm).
(1) Matlab scripts performing the network spanning
algorithms on the random scenarios generated by the
C++ application.
(2) A C++ Builder application for (a) generating ran-
dom node distribution scenarios to be fed into the
Matlab scripts and (b) calculating SNIR based on
the output files generated by the Matlab scripts.
In order to study the behavior of the ZigBee network, mul-
tiple scenarios have been generated with a variable number
of nodes, each located at 1.5 m above the ground and trans-
mitting with the power 0 dBm (at 0 dB of gain). Nodes are
scattered randomly over a square area of 500 m × 500 m.
As can be directly seen from an example scenario presented
in Figure 8 the ZigBee native network spanning algorithm
allows wireless links to intersect. In the example the link
between nodes 3 and 17 is intersected by the link between
nodes 25 and 7; the same can be observed for node pairs
(16, 17) and (21, 20).
Obviously, the chances of intersecting links will grow
with the number of density of nodes deployed in the area.
This is not of a great importance with omni-directional
antennas, but -- as will be demonstrated in Ref. [8] -- will
have a significant influence on the intra-network interfer-
ence if directional antennas are used. It should also be
noticed that each node may (not necessarily will) have more
than one possible neighbors to connect to after the network
spanning routine, which is supposed to assure redundancy
in connections (refer to Sections 3 and 4 for details).
An issue not to be underestimated is the fact that during
the alternative links selection these are not selected on a
minimum-pathloss criterion and the assumption that nodes
first to respond are the closest to the initiator is not true
in all circumstances. For instance, some closer nodes may
simply be involved in response transmissions to other PAN
coordinators at the moment and will therefore not be able
to respond at the moment. On the other hand, once a set of
1486 Wirel. Commun. Mob. Comput. 2012; 12:1481–1492 © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
K. Staniec and G. Debita
Fig. 9. An example of connections in a WSN (ZigBee algorithm).
possible connections has been established, the actual con-
nection is picked at random out of this set. The situation
applies to both ZigBee native and Stojmenovič algorithms.
Now, if a distant connection is chosen it may happen
that the transmitted signal will suffer considerable loss,
especially after the breakpoint, dbrk (refer to Section 5).
The weak desired signal combined with the aggregated
interference from other nodes may, in turn, drastically
decrease SNIR and possibly disable transmission. Such a
black scenario is depicted in Figure 9 (for the same nodes
arrangement as in Figure 8) where connections have been
determined with ZigBee algorithm. Node 29 in this example
may connect to nodes 25, 28, and 30. Although the lat-
ter case is extremely unfavorable due to the high expected
pathloss, it will be selected as a valid connection with 30%
probability.
7. A CONCEPT OF ANTENNA
DIRECTIVITY IN INTERFERENCE
MITIGATION
One of the two aspects to be analyzed in the presented work
is the idea of using directional antennas to combat inter-
ference introduced by other nodes. As is shown in Figure
10 interference is expected to be partially omitted if one
assumes the use of directive antennas in the radio modules
attached to sensors. In the example a desired transmission
session takes place between the sensor pair (1, 2) whereas
three other transmission sessions have also been established
in the vicinity: (3, 4), (5, 6), and (8, 7).
If directional antennas are used, only (3, 4) session will
interfere with the desired session. Otherwise, for omni-
directional reception -- all three foreign communications
would inject interference into node no. 2 thereby diminish-
ing SNIR observed by that node, as follows directly from
Equation (2). Obviously, in order to take most advantage
of this narrowed beamwidth, the beam switching must also
DOI: 10.1002/wcm
K. Staniec and G. Debita
Fig. 10. An example of interference mitigation with the use of
directive antennas in radio modules.
Fig. 11. The concept of antenna directivity switching: (a) packet
#1 transmission; (b) packet #2 transmission.
be involved since a given node picks one of the candidate
nodes (once for each packet transmission) randomly out of
its neighbor set (see Figure 11). Obviously, the beamwidth
control comes at some additional costs of complicating the
transmission/reception module. However, as will be shown
in Sections 8 and 9, the expected improvement in SNIR
justifies both effort and cost.
The final remark regarding the implementation of the
directional antennas concerns the antenna radiation pattern
(ARP) shape. Since its exact form usually differs by manu-
facturer, a generic simplified approach has been proposed to
model ARP provided the 3 dB (boresight) angle is known,
specified as θ 3dB in Figure 12.
The θ 3dB angle is defined as the angle spread on which
edges the transmitted power with a given ARP reduces by
3 dB. For the sake of simplicity a straight-line sectorization
has been proposed (gray area in Figure 12b) with a vesti-
gial reception of the back- and sidelobes lying outside the
Fig. 12. A model of ARP: (a) exact; (b) simplified.
Wirel. Commun. Mob. Comput. 2012; 12:1481–1492 © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/wcm
Interference mitigation in wireless sensor networks
boresight region, diminished by 25 dB with respect to the
intended transmission direction contained within θ 3dB .
The advantages of directionality have also been studied
in aspects addressing routing and medium access control
strategies for WSN, as in Refs. [16--20]. This paper, in turn,
is focused on the impact of directional antennas usage on
the physical layer of the WSN operation.
8. ANALYSIS OF RESULTS --
ANTENNA BEAMWIDTH INFLUENCE
ON INTERFERENCE
With the assumptions in previous sections in mind, multiple
simulations have been carried out to determine the influence
of the antenna beamwidth on the level of experienced inter-
ference. The number of nodes was varied from 10 to 90 and
for each case number, 10 random scenarios were generated
with Monte--Carlo distributed nodes. For every individual
node SNIR was found in each of the 10 scenarios and aver-
aged. The final value of SNIR as seen in Figures 13--15 was
calculated as the average across all the nodes in all scenarios
for a given number of M nodes. Such an averaging proce-
dure was intended to provide statistical robustness to results,
otherwise -- a per-instance analysis might exhibit flickering
variations stemming from random choices of neighbors in
Stojmenovič and ZigBee native algorithms (as described in
Sections 3 and 4). A typical value of minimum SNIRmin
defined for ZigBee (according to Table II) was indicated as
a horizontal dashed line.
It can be clearly seen that the SNIR changes non-linearly
with a strong dependence of SNIR with the beamwidth. In
the 0◦ beamwidth case SNIR is only limited by the ther-
mal noise and some rudimentary interference from other
nodes (due to 25 dB signal attenuation in their directions)
and the pathloss incurred by the desired signal. As seen in
Figures 13--15, regardless of the algorithm, SNIR crosses
its lower bound (5 dB) when the antenna beamwidth, under-
stood as the θ 3dB angle discussed in Section 7, reaches ca.
180◦ (which means that antennas radiate over one half the
horizontal plane and attenuate signals in the other half,
according to Figure 12) for 10 nodes. Statistically, this case
halves the total number of nodes M in the visible range
of each node. Quite surprisingly, however, SNIR responds
most rapidly when the number of nodes is increased from
1487
Interference mitigation in wireless sensor networks
Fig. 13. Averaged SNIR versus antenna beamwidth for different
nodes densities - Stojmenovič algorithm (a small window).
Fig. 14. Averaged SNIR versus antenna beamwidth for different
nodes densities - Stojmenovič algorithm (a large window).
Fig. 15. Averaged SNIR versus antenna boresight for different
nodes densities - ZigBee native algorithm.
10 to 20 (refer to Figure 16): the required beamwidth to sus-
tain the minimum SNIR has to be reduced by 45, 60, and
45◦ for the ZigBee native and Stojmenovič algorithm (small
and large window), respectively. For all further increases in
M, i.e., in the range 20--90 (see Figure 16), the necessary
reductions in the required beamwidth to sustain the min-
imum SNIR, are far less pronounced than for the 10--20
nodes transitions, and equal 25, 35, and 20◦ .
1488 Wirel. Commun. Mob. Comput. 2012; 12:1481–1492 © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
K. Staniec and G. Debita
Fig. 16. Minimum beamwidth dependence on the number of
nodes in the network.
Fig. 17. Averaged number of interferences versus antenna
beamwidth for different node densities.
In any case, however, Stojmenovič algorithm in the small
window mode behaves similarly to ZigBee native algorithm
in that they both perform slightly poorer than the large-
window Stojmenovič algorithm (i.e., a narrower beamwidth
is necessary to achieve the SNIR of 5 dB as compared to the
large window algorithm).
Figure 17, in turn, shows how the number of interfer-
ences changes with the antenna beamwidth. Obviously, for
omni-directional reception (360◦ case), the total number of
interferences equals M-2 since a given node cannot interfere
with itself or with the node it currently transmits to. It should
also be noticed that ZigBee and Stojmenovič algorithm do
not exhibit significant differences in the interference perfor-
mance despite different principles in the network structure
formation (refer to Sections 3 and 4).
9. ANALYSIS OF RESULTS -- DUTY
CYCLE INFLUENCE ON
INTERFERENCE
In this section attention is paid to another factor which
affects the interference performance of a mesh WSN -- the
DC of the transmitting modules. As was mentioned in pre-
vious sections, the results presented here concerned the
blackest of the possible scenarios with an important con-
clusion that even under such unfavorable conditions the
minimum SNIR can be met provided an adequate constraint
DOI: 10.1002/wcm
K. Staniec and G. Debita Interference mitigation in wireless sensor networks

Fig. 18. Averaged experienced number of interferences versus

DC of transmitting modules at 360◦ beamwidth.

Fig. 19. Averaged number of interferences versus antenna bore-

sight for different values of the DC.
is imposed on the antennas beamwidth. In most common
applications and in majority of cases, however, there is no
need for all the nodes to radiate simultaneously. An excep-
tion being some emergency situations when a disastrous
phenomenon is sensed by multiple nodes over a vast area
(e.g., a flood or fire). If so happens the DC, is considered
to be near 100%. Under normal operation, however, DC
is usually far less than this maximum [21] -- imposes an
upper bound of 1% on DC for devices operating at 868 MHz,
although no such regulation exists for the band under con-
sideration in this paper, i.e., 2.4 GHz ISM.
For the analyses, the most interference-prone scenario
with 90 nodes has been chosen. As was given in Figures
13--15, in order to maintain undisturbed communication the
antenna beamwidth had to be reduced down to 90◦ . It will
now be verified how this result is influenced by the DC. Fig. 20. Averaged SNIR versus DC of transmitting modules with
In the presented calculations a given node was assumed to Stojmenovič algorithm (a small window).
experience interference from another node if both follow-
ing conditions were satisfied: firstly -- the other node’s and
the tested node’s radiation patterns are within the visibility
range of each other and secondly -- the potentially interfer-
ing node is active (which comes at a probability equal to
DC). Otherwise, if any of the two conditions is not fulfilled,
the potentially interfering node is deemed either invisible
or inactive. Furthermore, as for the Stojmenovič algorithm,
only the small-window results were presented since almost
no difference with the large window was observed. It is best
demonstrated in Figure 18 which summarizes the number of
interference experienced by an average network node in the
worst-case omni-directional reception. A detailed view of
the number of interference as a function of the beamwidth is
provided in Figure 19. One can observe a linear dependence Fig. 21. Averaged SNIR versus DC of transmitting modules with
of this number with the DC (DC = 100% case the results ZigBee algorithm.
converge to those presented in Section 8).
From direct observation of Figures 20 and 21 it is also evi- into exponential relation between the minimum beamwidth
dent that the DC may dramatically change the interference (required to meet the minimum SNIR) and a DC.
situation from almost interference-free case even for omni- This can be seen in Figure 22 -- the strongest impact of
directional reception (DC = 1--5%) to heavy-interference the DC on the achieved results for DC change from 1 to
scenarios requiring serious narrowing of the beamwidth to 30%. In this range θ min undergoes a reduction from 360◦
sustain a proper radio transmission. down to ca. 150◦ (yielding 210◦ of total change).
Lastly, it should be noticed that despite the linear depen- For the remaining range of DC (i.e., 30--100%) the
dence of the experienced number of interferences with the changes in the minimum beamwidth scaled from ca. 150◦
DC of the network devices, this linearity translates itself down to 100◦ (yielding only 50◦ of total change). A best-fit

Wirel. Commun. Mob. Comput. 2012; 12:1481–1492 © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 1489
DOI: 10.1002/wcm
Interference mitigation in wireless sensor networks
Fig. 22. Minimum beamwidth versus DC of transmitting
modules.
exponential relation has also been found, given by Equation
(3), to analytically express the minimum beamwidth θ min as
a function of the DC. However, it should be noticed that the
improvement in the network performance is discussed here
in the statistical sense -- as an average of all transmission
sessions. Therefore, half of the total number of packets sent
in the network may expectedly be lost due to insufficient
SNIR.
The average mismatch between the three curves drawn
in Figure 22 and the best-fit curve equals 6.35◦ .
θmin = 446.7 DC−0.32 (3)
10. CONCLUSIONS AND FURHER
RESEARCH
The paper describes in detail two popular algorithms for
spanning wireless sensor ad-hoc networks, namely ZigBee-
native and Stojmenovič. It is stressed that in many instances
the mesh topologies created by them are not fault-tolerant
(i.e., in the case of a node failure no alternative paths are
present to bypass this node). Moreover, since links between
nodes in such a network are possible to intersect one another,
an electromagnetic incompatibility threat may arise, espe-
cially in the case of simultaneous transmissions from many
nodes lying in the proximity of one another.
In order to study the intra-network interference effec-
tively, a simple two-ray propagation model has been
proposed and demonstrated to be adequate for low-height
antennas. A simplified model for the antenna radiation
characteristic has also been introduced. Based on these
models and the network-spanning algorithms, a software
simulator has been proposed for calculating the SNIR in
IEEE 802.15.4 (or ZigBee) networks. It has been shown
that even in scenarios with simultaneous emissions from
all network nodes one may find an optimal antenna 3 dB
beamwidth sufficient to maintain the minimum required
value of SNIR. Another recommended means of decreas-
ing the intra-network interference is by controlling the DC
of the network devices, i.e., allowing access to the channel
with some probability, referred to in the paper as a DC.
An obvious disadvantage of implementing directional
antennas, at least for the state of the art on sensor radio
1490 Wirel. Commun. Mob. Comput. 2012; 12:1481–1492 © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
K. Staniec and G. Debita
modules, is a considerable complication of the transceiver
electronics on the sensor boards which are by definition
meant to be rather small and inexpensive devices. Since the
authors’ intention was not to provide any recipe or solu-
tions in this respect, the results presented in the paper may
therefore be treated as encouragement to the research and
development in this area by demonstrating the expected ben-
efits in the physical layer obtained from the implementation
of antenna directivity.
The authors are in progress with devising a network
spanning algorithm -- alternative to the two above men-
tioned (i.e., either Stojmenovič or ZigBee native), which
possesses an inherent radio interference-mitigation feature.
This is to be achieved by avoiding establishment of cer-
tain interference-generating connections at an early stage of
the network design. Initial results prove that such an algo-
rithm is viable. Moreover, some measurements have been
performed with adequately reprogrammed ZigBee devices,
indicating that the novel algorithm also (considerably) out-
performs the popular methods described in Sections 3 and
4 with respect to the energetic efficiency (on the order of
ca. 10 times).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This paper has been written as a result of realization of the
project entitled: ‘Detectors and sensors for measuring fac-
tors hazardous to environment -- modeling and monitoring
of threats.’ The project funded by the European Union via
the European Regional Development Fund and the Polish
state budget, within the framework of the Operational Pro-
gramme Innovative Economy 2007--2013. The contract for
refinancing no. POIG.01.03.01-02-002/08-00.
REFERENCES
1. Mordachev V, Loyka S. On node density -- outage prob-
ability tradeoff in wireless networks. IEEE Journal on
Selected Areas in Communications 2009; 27(7): 1120--
1131.
2. Zhou G, He T, Stankovic JA, Abdelzaher T. RID: radio
interference detection in wireless sensor network. Pro-
ceedings of IEEE INFOCOM 2005, vol. 2, 13--17 March,
Miami, USA, 2005, pp. 891--901.
3. Gewali L, Mohamad K, Tun M. Interference Aware
Dominating Set for Sensor Network. Proceedings of
Third International Conference on Information Technol-
ogy: New Generations (ITNG’06), 0-7695-2497 -4/06,
April 2006, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, pp. 268--273.
4. Xu W, Trappe W, Zhang Y. Defending wireless sen-
sor networks from radio interference through channel
adaptation. Proceedings of ACM Transactions on Sen-
sor Network, vol. 4, no. 4, article 18, Aug. 2008, pp.
18.1--18.34.
DOI: 10.1002/wcm
K. Staniec and G. Debita
5. Hekmat R, Van Mieghem P. Interference power statis-
tics in ad hoc and sensor networks. Wireless Networks,
Springer: Springer Netherlands, vol. 14, no. 5, Oct. 2008,
591--599.
6. Vakil S, Liang B. Balancing cooperation and interfer-
ence in wireless sensor networks. Proceedings of 3rd
IEEE Annual IEEE Communications Society Confer-
ence on Sensor, Mesh and Ad Hoc Communications
and Networks (SECON), vol. 1, Sept. 2006, pp.198--
206.
7. Mordachev V, Loyka S. Statistical properties of
electromagnetic environment in wireless networks,
intra-network electromagnetic compatibility and safety.
Proceedings of 20th International Symposium on EMC,
Sept. 13--17, Wrocław, 2010, pp.619--624.
8. Tran-Xuan C, Koo I. An RSS-based localization scheme
using direction calibration and reliability factor informa-
tion for wireless sensor networks. KSII Transactions on
Internet and Information Systems 2010; 4(1): 45--61.
9. Staniec K, Debita G. Antenna beamwidth control
for improving signal-to-noise ratio in wireless sensor
networks. Proceedings of 2010 14th International Con-
ference on Intelligent Engineering Systems (INES), May
2010, pp. 103--107.
10. IEEE, IEEE Std 802.15.4TM -2006, Part 15.4: Wire-
less Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical layer
(PHY) Specification for Low-Rate Wireless Personal
Area Networks (WPANs).
11. Shooman ML. Reliability of Computer Systems and Net-
works -- Fault Tolerance, Analysis and Design, John
Wiley & Sons: 2002.
12. Pióro M, Medhi D. Routing, Flow, and Capacity Design
in Communication and Computer Networks, Morgan
Kaufmann Publishers: San Francisco, 2004.
13. Stojmenovič I. Handbook of Sensor Networks -- Algo-
rithms and Architectures, John Wiley & Sons: Ottawa,
2004.
14. Debita G, Staniec K. Reliable mesh network planning
with minimization of intra-system interference. Pro-
ceedings of Broadband Communication, Information
Technology & Biomedical Applications BROADBAND-
COM’09, July 15--18, 2009, Wrocław, Poland, pp.
243--244.
15. Debita G, Staniec K. Algorithms for reliable networks
deployment in mesh topology with flow control. Inter-
national Journal of Electronics and Telecommunications
2010; 56(1): 73--80.
16. Jasani H, Yen K. Performance improvement using
directional antennas in ad hoc networks. International
Journal of Computer Science and Network Security
2006; 6(6): 180--188.
17. Choudhury RR, Vaidya NH. Impact of directional anten-
nas on ad hoc routing. Proceedings of IFIP Personal
Wirel. Commun. Mob. Comput. 2012; 12:1481–1492 © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/wcm
Interference mitigation in wireless sensor networks
and Wireless Communications (PWC) 2003, Sept. 23--
25, Venice (Italy), 2003, pp.590--600.
18. Ramanathan R, Redi J, Santivanez C, Wiggins D, Polit
S. Ad hoc networking with directional antennas: a com-
plete system solution. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas
in Communications 2005; 23(3): 496--506.
19. ElBatt T, Anderson T, Ryu B. Performance evalua-
tion of multiple access protocols for ad hoc networks
using directional antennas. Proceedings of IEEE Wire-
less Communications and Networking Conference
(WCNC), March 16--20, 2003, New Orleans (Louisiana),
USA.
20. Munari A, Rossetto F, Zorzi M. Cooperative cross layer
MAC protocols for directional antenna ad hoc networks.
ACM Mobile Computing and Communications Review.
ACM: New York, NY, USA, 2008; 12 (2): 12--30.
21. CEPT, ERC Recommendation 70-03 Relating to the Use
of Short Range Devices (SRD), Annex 1: Non-specific
Short Range Devices. Version of 16 October 2009.
AUTHORS’ BIOGRAPHIES
Kamil Staniec, received his MSc
degree from Lodz Technical University
(with honors) in 2001 and a PhD degree
from Wroclaw University of Technol-
ogy (with honors) in 2006. Since 2006
he has been a scientist with Wroclaw
University of Technology where he
is involved in research on the propa-
gation modeling and measurement in
indoor and mine environments. Apart from these issues,
he also coordinates the tele-information section in a multi-
disciplinary project on sensors and detectors for monitoring
factors hazardous to the environment (end of project in
Dec. 2012), commissioned by the Polish Ministry of Sci-
ence. His investigations in the project concern methods
for reducing intra-network radio interference in wireless
sensor networks and improving their energetic efficiency.
Since 2007 he has also been involved as a chief scientist
with a project on the next-generation services and networks
where he has developed a deterministic model based on
the ray launching for modeling the radiowaves propaga-
tion in reverberation chambers, in both amplitude and time
domains.
Grzegorz Debita, a graduate (MSc)
from Wroclaw University of Technol-
ogy, Institute of Telecommunications,
Teleinformatics and Acoustics. He
is currently employed at the Chair
of Radiocommunications and Tele-
informatics where he is pursuing a
PhD dissertation (presently awaiting
1491
Interference mitigation in wireless sensor networks K. Staniec and G. Debita

defense). His domain of research, in general, pertains reliability. Other topics of expertise include optimization
to the tele-information science systems design while his methods in radio systems for intra-network electromag-
main interest if focused on the application of planar netic compatibility and optimization of communication
graphs in wireless mesh networks with regard to their protocols.

1492 Wirel. Commun. Mob. Comput. 2012; 12:1481–1492 © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/wcm