Outdoor Propagation Analysis for LR-WPAN IEEE 802.15.4

This paper presents a preliminary study to obtain the propagation characteristics for IEEE 802.15.4 Low Rate-Wireless Personal Area Network (LR-WPAN). Two units of Wireless Sensor Networks Nodes (WSNs) were used in this study. Data collection was performed at a wide outdoor area with the nodes being positioned in a vertical and horizontal positions. For each position, the received powers were measured at distances of 10, 20, 30 and 40 m. The collected data were analysed based on their received power, Packet Error Rate (PER) and statistics. The results show that nodes positions have significant effects on the signal propagation. Generally, vertical position produced better performance compared to horizontal position.