Bit error rate analysis of Wi-Fi and bluetooth under the interference of 2.45 GHz RFID

IEEE 802.11b WLAN (Wi-Fi) and IEEE 802.15.1 WPAN (bluetooth) are prevalent nowadays, and radio frequency identification (RFID) is an emerging technology which has wider applications. 802.11b occupies unlicensed industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) band (2.4–2.483 5 GHz) and uses direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) to alleviate the narrow band interference and fading. Bluetooth is also one user of ISM band and adopts frequency hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) to avoid the mutual interference. RFID can operate on multiple frequency bands, such as 135 KHz, 13.56 MHz and 2.45 GHz. When 2.45 GHz RFID device, which uses FHSS, collocates with 802.11b or bluetooth, the mutual interference is inevitable. Although DSSS and FHSS are applied to mitigate the interference, their performance degradation may be very significant. Therefore, in this article, the impact of 2.45 GHz RFID on 802.11b and bluetooth is investigated. Bit error rate (BER) of 802.11b and bluetooth are analyzed by establishing a mathematical model, and the simulation results are compared with the theoretical analysis to justify this mathematical model.