Effect of Impulse Radio–Ultrawideband Based on Energy Collection on MAC Protocol Performance

In this paper, we analyze the effects of the probabilities of detection, false alarm, and frame collision survival (in the presence of simultaneous transmissions) on medium access control (MAC) protocols using impulse-radio–ultrawideband (IR–UWB) energy-collection noncoherent receivers. The MAC protocols that were considered are all IEEE 802.15.4 compatible, i.e., the IEEE 802.15.4a optional UWB clear-channel-assessment mode, the IEEE 802.15.4a ALOHA mode, and a protocol termed preamble sense multiple access (PSMA). The impact on the network throughput, energy consumption, and delay are analytically derived and verified by simulation. The results show that these effects have a considerable impact on the performance of IR–UWB MAC protocols, and a classical analysis does not properly evaluate the protocols’ performances. The results compare the performances of the MAC protocols and highlight a number of issues with regard to adapting narrowband protocols to UWB systems. The probability of frame collision survival on simultaneous transmissions is shown to have a significant impact on the performance of a MAC protocol. The comparison shows superior performance of the PSMA protocol under typical wireless-sensor-network operation ranges.