Reactor Building Indoor Wireless Network Channel Quality Estimation Using RSSI Measurement of Wireless Sensor Network

Abstract

Reactor building indoor wireless network Channel quality estimation Soorena Merat Instrumentation and Control system Design Engineer in Training Wardrop Engineering Inc. Expanding wireless communication network reception inside reactor buildings (RB) and service wings (SW) has been a technical challenge driven by the industrial nature of obstacles, which blocks and somehow shields the signal throughout the link as a result of heavy metal work of equipment inside the RB. Design and calculation of the wireless link along with individual differences of transmitters, receivers, and antenna type and transmission power is a major component of preliminary design project, but a real low cost configuration needs a good estimation of optimum configuration with the lowest cost, which requires a valid estimation. Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are currently used to locate moving indoor targets. With reverse calculation of the RSSI including mathematical tricks, while we have an idea about where the target is located in RB, we can estimate the link strength and know how good the indoor antenna location is. After preliminary estimation the target will be moved inside the reactor building to complete our estimation in actual breakpoints to look for less error and final estimation of the directional clearance of antenna/transmitter. Using 802.15 standard will also helps us to measure not only the Receive signal strength but also the Link Quality by using (LQI) link quality indicator. This can also be used to determine error or failure occurrence in the located and linked antennas inside RB by estimating the radio link power and quality in case of loss of some antennas in RB and SW.