Low-latency Symbol-Synchronous Communication for Multi-hop Sensor Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces a symbol-synchronous communication scheme for multi-hop wireless sensor networks that enables low-latency, reliable data transmission by leveraging concurrent transmissions, outperforming traditional interference-avoidance methods.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel symbol-synchronous transmission design that allows concurrent transmissions to achieve low-latency, reliable communication in sensor networks, challenging traditional interference-avoidance protocols.

Findings

Achieves 5ms delay for 512-bit packets over multiple hops.

Maintains a low bit error rate of 0.04%.

Reaches a data rate of 100kbps, surpassing similar approaches.

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have received great interest due to their scalability, energy efficiency, and low-cost deployment. By utilizing multi-hop communication, WSNs can cover a wide area using low transmission power without the need for any communication infrastructure. Traditionally, WSNs rely on store-and-forward routing protocols and Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA)-based schedules that avoid interference between different wireless nodes. However, emerging challenging scenarios, such as the industrial Internet of Things (IoT) and robotic swarms, impose strict latency and reliability requirements, which traditional approaches cannot fulfill. In this paper, we propose a novel symbol-synchronous transmission design that provides reliable low-latency communication with a reasonable data rate on classical sub-6GHz RF frequency bands (e.g., the 2.4GHz ISM band). Instead of avoiding overlapping transmissions, the proposed scheme benefits from concurrent transmissions. Using simulation in MATLAB, we prove that the proposed design allows achieving a wire-like delay of 5ms for a 512-bit packet over multiple hops with only a 0.3% latency increase per extra hop and a low bit error rate (BER) of 0.04%. Compared to similar state-of-the-art approaches it can achieve a significantly higher data rate of 100kbps, which is expected to increase further with future improvements of the system.