Topology Formation in IEEE 802.15.4: Cluster-Tree Characterization

The IEEE 802.15.4 standard defines a set of procedures to set-up a Low-Rate Wireless Personal Area Network where nodes self-organize into a logical communication structure through which data can be routed, hop by hop, from sources to destinations. The network formation of the IEEE 802.15.4 does not impose constraints on the topology. The ZigBee Alliance uses the IEEE 802.15.4 layers to build a complete protocol stack for the implementation of wireless sensor networks. ZigBee specifies the network layer for star, tree and peer-to-peer topologies. Starting from these, more complex cluster-tree topologies can be formed. To control the network topology ZigBee fixes the maximum number of routers and end-devices that each router may have as children and also fixes the maximum depth of the tree. To better understand the importance of these constraints we simulate and analyze the IEEE 802.15.4 formation procedure in different network settings (single-sink and multi-sink scenarios). The goal is to provide guidelines for the practical implementation of ZigBee network formation with the aforementioned constraints.