Performance Evaluation of IEEE802.15.4 (LR-WPAN) MAC Protocol in Beacon Enabled Mode

Abstract

The rapid growth of wireless technology brings a revolutionary change in the network market. Wireless technology facilitates users to set up a network quickly, but also allows them to set up a network where it is almost impossible for wired technology. Low Data Rate Wireless Network (LR-WPAN) was developed to improve the demands of users by adding features of simple architecture, low power and low cost wireless communication. This thesis is constituted by discussing different aspects of LR-WPAN and also includes the performance of LR-WPAN through simulations results, this standard is not efficient in terms of quality of service and it directly affects the performance, when we increase number of nodes in any network along with the traffic load in any simulation environment. We conducted several experiments in order to evaluate the performance of LR-WPAN, the major part is to change the CSMA-CA algorithm parameters and investigate the impact of the backoff exponent (how multiplied backoff intervals a device shall hold itself before attempting to approach the carrier), frame size and number of terminals on the execution metrics including Throughput, Buffer over flow Probability, Impact of Packet size and Beacon structure on Throughput.