Wireless standard technology identification via signal temporal characteristics: a comprehensive 802.11b/g case study

摘要

ISM spectrum is becoming increasingly populated with various wireless technologies. Consequently, wireless coexistence suffers especially when heterogeneous communicating wireless devices are collocated and sharing the same spectrum. Technology awareness of the collocated devices provides a pathway to improving wireless coexistence. This paper presents a novel method for identifying wireless technologies through the use of simple energy detection techniques to measure channel temporal characteristics including activity and idle time probability distributions. Wireless technology identification enables situational awareness to improve coexistence and reduce interference among the devices. An intelligent wireless device is capable of detecting wireless technologies operating in the vicinity. In this work, a wireless technology identification algorithm was assessed experimentally. Temporal traffic pattern for 802.11b/g homogeneous and heterogeneous networks were measured and used as algorithm input. Identification accuracies of up to 96.83% and 85.9% were achieved for homogeneous and heterogeneous networks, respectively.