Comparative Evaluation and Analysis of IEEE802.15.4 and IEEE802.15.6 Standards

Abstract

A Wireless Personal Area Network is a network of interconnecting devices centered around an individual’s work space. Wireless Sensor Networks as well as Body Area Networks can be used in a Wireless Personal Area Network. The IEEE 802.15 group is specifically concentrated on the standardization of the Wireless Personal Area Networks and also categorizes Wireless Sensor Networks (low powered) in the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. Body Area Networks are defined by the IEEE 802.15.6 standard. Under normal conditions, both of these standards control the set of devices meant for their respective standards. However, the devices being architecturally similar (nodes being similar but with difference in power, area covered etc) must be able to work on their counterpart’s standard. In this thesis, both the IEEE 802.15.4 and IEEE 802.15.6 are used on a similar setup with same parameters in order to study the outcome which may arise due to this type of implementation. The existing techniques configure the devices to be used by a particular standard. However, it may be interesting to gauge the performance of a system of devices meant for a particular standard used with another standard. In this thesis, a similar exercise is performed by setting the nodes and implementing both the IEEE 802.15.4 as well as IEEE 802.15.6 on these nodes.