| The emergence of several radio technologies such as Bluetooth and IEEE 802.11 operating in the 2.4 GHz unlicensed ISM frequency band may lead to signal interference and result in significant performance degradation when devices are proximally located. The main goal of this research is two-fold: (1) to conduct a performance evaluation of these radio systems sharing the same air space, and (2) to develop solutions for their coexistence in the same environment.; Our approach for quantifying the impact of interference on the Bluetooth and WLAN systems is as follows. First, we develop a detailed MAC and PHY simulation platform and obtain performance results in terms of packet loss and access delay for several topologies of interest. Second, we derive a first order approximation for the packet error of a Bluetooth system operating in close proximity to a WLAN system based on the probability that their packets collide in time and frequency. The analysis is validated with the detailed simulation model results.; Towards the second goal of this research, that is, developing coexistence mechanisms, we discuss the details of a Bluetooth scheduling algorithm that adapts to WLAN interference and provide simulation results for the performance of both systems. We show that the proposed algorithm responds well to rapid changes in the interference environment, supports quality of service, and improves the performance of both systems for most traffic conditions and network topologies envisioned in a mixed Bluetooth and WLAN environment. |
