Improving the Accuracy Rate of Link Quality Estimation Using Fuzzy Logic in Mobile Wireless Sensor Network

Link quality estimation is essential for improving the performance of a routing protocol in a wireless sensor network. Many methods have been proposed to increase the performance of the link quality estimation; however, most of them are not able to evaluate link quality accurately. In this study, a method that uses fuzzy logic to combine both hardware-based and software-based metrics is proposed to improve the accuracy rate for evaluating a link quality. This proposed method consists of three types of modules, the Fuzzifier module, the Inference module, and the Defuzzifier module. The Fuzzifier module is used to determine the degree to which input link quality metrics belong to each fuzzy set through proposed membership functions. The Inference module obtains the rule outputs based on the proposed fuzzy rules and the given inputs acquired from the Fuzzifier module. The Defuzzifier module is used to aggregate the rule outputs inferred from the Inference module. The result from the Defuzzifier module is then used to evaluate the link quality. A simulation conducted to compare the accuracy rates of the proposed method and those found in related works showed that the proposed method had higher accuracy rates for evaluating a link quality.