Performance evaluation of IEEE 802.15.4 for low-rate wireless personal area networks

IEEE 802.15.4 is an emerging standard specifically designed for low-rate wireless personal area networks (LR-WPAN) with a focus on enabling the wireless sensor networks. It attempts to provide a low data rate, low power, and low cost wireless networking on the device-level communication. In this paper, we have established a realistic environment for the preliminary performance evaluation of the IEEE 802.15.4 wireless networks. Several sets of practical experiments are conducted to study its various features, including the effects of 1) the direct and indirect data transmissions, 2) CSMA-CA mechanism, 3) data pay load size, and 4) beacon-enabled mode. The data throughput, delivery ratio, and received signal strength indication (RSSI) are investigated as the performance metrics. The results show that IEEE 802.15.4 has better performance in non-beacon mode. Some issues that could degrade the network performance are also discussed in this paper