Analysis of Bluetooth interference on IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN

IEEE 802.11 and Bluetooth wireless networks are complementary technologies sharing the same 2.4 GHz ISM (industrial, scientific and medical) frequency band and are likely to be installed within the same environment. This may lead to signal interference and result in significant performance degradation when they are operating in the same environment. The objective of this thesis is to study the performance of 2 Mbps IEEE 802.11 system in the presence of Bluetooth for an open indoor environment. An environment comprising of detailed models of IEEE 802.11 physical layer, Bluetooth physical layer and the RF channel is developed. Several simulation scenarios are considered to evaluate the interference effects in terms of IEEE 802.11 bit error rate. It is shown that the bit error rate of IEEE 802.11 deteriorates with a Bluetooth node located in the same device. The signal-to-interference ratio and the interference range for a reliable IEEE 802.11 operation are determined. A guideline for planning the relative distance between an IEEE 802.11 station and Bluetooth is offered.