Frame Converter for Cooperative Coexistence Between IEEE 802.15.4 Wireless Sensor Networks and Wi-Fi

Abstract

With the exponentially increased users of wireless communication, a large numbers of wireless networks coexists in 2400 MHz Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) band. The IEEE 802.15.4 Wireless Sensor Networks with their low power consumption and low cost advantages are widely adopted in low data rate industrial and consumer applications. The Wi-Fi, IEEE 802.11b/g offers high data rate and larger range. Both these technologies co-exist in ISM Band. The Wi-Fi signals having high signal strength interfere with the weak signals of IEEE 802.15.4, which degrades the throughput performance of IEEE 802.15.4 Wireless sensor networks. It results in a coexistence with non-cooperation. The authors developed a Frame Converter System to establish co-operative coexistence between IEEE 802.15.4 and IEEE 802.11b/g networks. The frame converter is implemented at the Media Access Control Layer using ARM7 processor. It converts the frames of IEEE 802.15.4 network to frames WiFi and WiFi to IEEE 802.15.4.