Low-cost interferer detection and classification using TelosB sensor motes

Inter-protocol interference is one of the most critical issues in wireless communication. For example, this becomes extremely problematic in environments where robustness and realtime communication need to be considered, e.g., in industrial automation or health care applications. Recently, possible approaches for interference mitigation have been described in the literature assuming that the interferer is known in advance. We contribute to this line of research with a framework for interferer detection and classification. Essentially, we use a simple IEEE 802.15.4 transceiver as for example used on the TelosB sensor motes to scan the 2.4 GHz ISM band. This band is used by different technologies including Bluetooth, WiFi, and cordless phones. The key challenge is the accurate timing of the scanning of the frequency band. The presented framework supports flexible descriptions of such scan jobs allowing to adapt to the detectors requirements, depending on the interfering protocols.