UNIT I – Wireless LAN

Advantages of WLANs are:

● Flexibility: Within radio coverage, nodes can communicate without further
restriction. Radio waves can penetrate walls, senders and receivers can be
placed anywhere (also non-visible, e.g., within devices, in walls etc.).

● Planning: Only wireless ad-hoc networks allow for communication without

previous planning, any wired network needs wiring plans. As long as devices
follow the same standard, they can communicate.

● Design: Wireless networks allow for the design of small, independent devices,
which can for example be put into a pocket. Cables not only restrict users but
also designers of small PDAs, notepads etc.

● Robustness: Wireless networks can survive disasters, e.g., earthquakes or

users pulling a plug. If the wireless devices survive, people can still
communicate. Networks requiring a wired infrastructure will usually break
down completely.

●Cost: After providing wireless access to the infrastructure via an access point
for the first user, adding additional users to a wireless network will not increase
the cost.

Disadvantages of WLANs:
● Quality of service: WLANs typically offer lower quality than their wired
counterparts. The main reasons for this are the lower bandwidth due to
limitations in radio transmission (e.g., only 1–10 Mbit/s user data rate instead
of 100–1,000 Mbit/s), higher error rates due to interference (e.g., 10–4 instead
of 10–12 for fiber optics), and higher delay/delay variation due to extensive
error correction and detection mechanisms.

● Proprietary solutions: Due to slow standardization procedures, many

companies have come up with proprietary solutions offering standardized
functionality plus many enhanced features (typically a higher bit rate using a
patented coding technology or special inter-access point protocols).

● Restrictions: All wireless products have to comply with national regulations.

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Several government and non-government institutions worldwide regulate the
operation and restrict frequencies to minimize interference.

● Safety and security: Using radio waves for data transmission might interfere
with other high-tech equipment in, e.g., hospitals. Senders and receivers are
operated by laymen and, radiation has to be low. Special precautions have to
be taken to prevent safety hazards.

Design goals have to be taken into account for WLANs to ensure :

● Global operation: WLAN products should sell in all countries so, national and
international frequency regulations have to be considered. In contrast to the
infrastructure of wireless WANs, LAN equipment may be carried from one
country into another – the operation should still be legal in this case.

● Low power: Devices communicating via a WLAN are typically also wireless
devices running on battery power. The LAN design should take this into account
and implement special power-saving modes and power management functions.
Wireless communication with devices plugged into a power outlet is only useful
in some cases (e.g., no additional cabling should be necessary for the network
in historic buildings or at trade shows). However, the future clearly lies in small
handheld devices without any restricting wire.

● License-free operation: LAN operators do not want to apply for a special

license to be able to use the product. The equipment must operate in a license-
free band, such as the 2.4 GHz ISM band.

● Robust transmission technology: Compared to their wired counterparts,

WLANs operate under difficult conditions. If they use radio transmission,
many other electrical devices can interfere with them (vacuum cleaners,
hairdryers, train engines etc.). WLAN transceivers cannot be adjusted for
perfect transmission in a standard office or production environment. Antennas
are typically omnidirectional, not directed. Senders and receivers may move.

● Simplified spontaneous cooperation: To be useful in practice, WLANs should

not require complicated setup routines but should operate spontaneously after
power-up. These LANs would not be useful for supporting, e.g., ad-hoc
meetings.

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● Easy to use: In contrast to huge and complex wireless WANs, wireless LANs
are made for simple use. They should not require complex management,
but rather work on a plug-and-play basis.

● Protection of investment: A lot of money has already been invested into

wired LANs. The new WLANs should protect this investment by being
interoperable with the existing networks. This means that simple bridging
between the different LANs should be enough to interoperate, i.e., the wireless
LANs should support the same data types and services that standard LANs
support.

● Safety and security: Wireless LANs should be safe to operate, especially

regarding low radiation if used, e.g., in hospitals. Users cannot keep safety
distances to antennas. The equipment has to be safe for pacemakers, too.

Infra red vs radio transmission:

Infra red technology uses diffuse light reflected at walls, furniture etc. or
directed light if a line-of-sight (LOS) exists between sender and receiver.
Senders can be simple light emitting diodes (LEDs) or laser diodes. Photodiodes
act as receivers.

● The main advantages of infra red technology are its simple and extremely
cheap senders and receivers which are integrated into nearly all mobile devices
available today. PDAs, laptops, notebooks, mobile phones etc. have an infra red
data association (IrDA) interface. Version 1.0 of this industry standard
implements data rates of up to 115 kbit/s, while IrDA 1.1 defines higher data
rates of 1.152 and 4 Mbit/s. No licenses are needed for infra red technology and
shielding is very simple. Electrical devices do not interfere with infra red
transmission.

● Disadvantages of infra red transmission are its low bandwidth compared to

other LAN technologies. Typically, IrDA devices are internally connected to a
serial port limiting transfer rates to 115 kbit/s. Even 4 Mbit/s is not a particularly
high data rate. However, their main disadvantage is that infra red is quite easily
shielded. Infra red transmission cannot penetrate walls or other obstacles.

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Typically, for good transmission quality and high data rates a LOS, i.e., direct
connection, is needed.

● Advantages of radio transmission include the long-term experiences made

with radio transmission for wide area networks (e.g., microwave links) and
mobile cellular phones. Radio transmission can cover larger areas and can
penetrate (thinner) walls, furniture, plants etc. Additional coverage is gained
by reflection. Radio typically does not need a LOS if the frequencies are not too
high. Furthermore, current radio-based products offer much higher
transmission rates (e.g., 54 Mbit/s) than infra red (directed laser inks, which
offer data rates well above 100 Mbit/s. These are not considered here as it is
very difficult to use them with mobile devices).

● Disadvantage of radio transmission :

Shielding is not so simple. Radio transmission can interfere with other senders,
or electrical devices can destroy data transmitted via radio. Additionally, radio
transmission is only permitted in certain frequency bands. Very limited ranges
of license-free bands are available worldwide and those that are available are
not the same in all countries. However, a lot of harmonization is going on due
to market pressure.

IEEE 802.11
The IEEE standard 802.11 (IEEE, 1999) specifies the most famous family of
WLANs in which many products are available. As the standard’s number
indicates, this standard belongs to the group of 802.x LAN standards, e.g., 802.3
Ethernet or 802.5 Token Ring. This means that the standard specifies the
physical and medium access layer adapted to the special requirements of
wireless LANs, but offers the same interface as the others to higher layers to
maintain interoperability.

The primary goal of the standard was the specification of a simple and robust
WLAN which offers time-bounded and asynchronous services. The MAC layer
should be able to operate with multiple physical layers, each of which exhibits
a
different medium sense and transmission characteristic. Candidates for physical
layers were infra red and spread spectrum radio transmission techniques.

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Additional features of the WLAN should include the support of power
management to save battery power, the handling of hidden nodes, and the
ability to operate worldwide. The 2.4 GHz ISM band, which is available in most
countries around the world, was chosen for the original standard. Data rates
envisaged for the standard were 1 Mbit/s mandatory and 2 Mbit/s optional. The
following sections will introduce the system and protocol architecture of the
initial IEEE 802.11 and then discuss each layer, i.e., physical layer and medium
access.
After that, the complex and very important management functions of the
standard are presented. Finally, this subsection presents the enhancements of
the original standard for higher data rates, 802.11a (up to 54 Mbit/s at 5 GHz)
and 802.11b (today the most successful with 11 Mbit/s) together with further
developments for security support, harmonization, or other modulation
schemes.
System architecture of IEEE 802.11
Figure shows the components of an infrastructure and a wireless part as
specified for IEEE 802.11. Several nodes, called stations (STAi), are connected
to access points (AP). Stations are terminals with access mechanisms to the
wireless medium and radio contact to the AP.

Architecture of an infrastructure-based IEEE 802.11

The stations and the AP which are within the same radio coverage form a basic
service set (BSSi). The example shows two BSSs – BSS1 and BSS2 – which are
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connected via a distribution system. A distribution system connects several
BSSs via the AP to form a single network and thereby extends the wireless
coverage area. This network is now called an extended service set (ESS) and has
its own identifier, the ESSID.

The ESSID is the ‘name’ of a network and is used to separate different networks.
Without knowing the ESSID (and assuming no hacking) it should not be possible
to participate in the WLAN. The distribution system connects the wireless
networks via the APs with a portal, which forms the interworking unit to other
LANs. The architecture of the distribution system is not specified further in IEEE
802.11. It could consist of bridged IEEE LANs, wireless links, or any other
networks. However, distribution system services are defined in the standard
Stations can select an AP and associate with it.

Architecture of IEEE 802.11 ad-hoc wireless LANs

The APs support roaming (i.e., changing access points), the distribution system
handles data transfer between the different APs. APs provide synchronization
within a BSS, support power management, and can control medium access to
support time-bounded service. In this above figure, an IBSS comprises a group
of stations using the same radio frequency. Stations STA1, STA2, and STA3 are
in IBSS1, STA4 and STA5 in IBSS2. This means for example that STA3 can
communicate directly with STA2 but not with STA5. Several IBSSs can either be
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formed via the distance between the IBSSs or by using different carrier
frequencies (then the IBSSs could overlap physically).

Protocol architecture of IEEE 802.11

IEEE 802.11 fits seamlessly into the other 802.x standards for wired LANs .Figure
below shows the most common scenario: an IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN
connected to a switched IEEE 802.3 Ethernet via a bridge. Applications should
not notice any difference apart from the lower bandwidth and perhaps higher
access time from the wireless LAN. The WLAN behaves like a slow wired LAN.
Consequently, the higher layers (application, TCP, IP) look the same for wireless
nodes as for wired nodes. The upper part of the data link control layer, the
logical link control (LLC), covers the differences of the medium access control
layers needed for the different media.

IEEE 802.11 Protocol architecture and bridging

Format of an IEEE 802.11 PHY

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● Synchronization: The first 128 bits are not only used for synchronization, but
also gain setting, energy detection (for the CCA), and frequency offset
compensation. The synchronization field only consists of scrambled 1 bits.
● Start frame delimiter (SFD): This 16 bit field is used for synchronization at the
beginning of a frame and consists of the pattern 1111001110100000.
● Signal: Originally, only two values have been defined for this field to indicate
the data rate of the payload. The value 0x0A indicates 1 Mbit/s (and thus
DBPSK), 0x14 indicates 2 Mbit/s (and thus DQPSK). Other values have been
reserved for future use, i.e., higher bit rates.
● Service: This field is reserved for future use; however, 0x00 indicates an IEEE
802.11 compliant frame.
● Length: 16 bits are used in this case for length indication of the payload in
microseconds.
● Header error check (HEC): Signal, service, and length fields are protected by
this checksum using the ITU-T CRC-16 standard polynomial.

802.11b :

The 802.11b standard has a maximum raw data rate of 11 Mbit/s (Megabits per
second), and uses the same media access method defined in the original
standard. 802.11b products appeared on the market in early 2000, since
802.11b is a direct extension of the modulation technique defined in the
original standard. The dramatic increase in throughput of 802.11b (compared
to the original standard) along with simultaneous substantial price reductions
led to the rapid acceptance of 802.11b as the definitive wireless LAN
technology.

Devices using 802.11b experience interference from other products operating

in the 2.4 GHz band. Devices operating in the 2.4 GHz range include microwave
ovens, Bluetooth devices, baby monitors, cordless telephones, and some
amateur radio equipment. As unlicensed intentional radiators in this ISM band,
they must not interfere with and must tolerate interference from primary or
secondary allocations (users) of this band, such as amateur radio.

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Figure below illustrates the non-overlapping usage of channels for an IEEE
802.11b installation with minimal interference in the US/Canada and Europe.
The spacing between the center frequencies should be at least 25 MHz (the
occupied bandwidth of the main lobe of the signal is 22 MHz).

This results in the channels 1, 6, and 11 for the US/Canada or 1, 7, 13 for Europe,
respectively. It may be the case that, e.g., travellers from the US cannot use the
additional channels (12 and 13) in Europe as their hardware is limited to 11
channels. Some European installations use channel 13 to minimize interference.
Users can install overlapping cells for WLANs using the three non-overlapping
channels to provide seamless coverage. This is similar to the cell planning for
mobile phone systems.

IEEE 802.11b Non-overlapping channel selection

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802.11a:
Initially aimed at the US 5 GHz U-NII (Unlicensed National Information
Infrastructure) bands IEEE 802.11a offers up to 54 Mbit/s using OFDM (IEEE,
1999). The first products were available in 2001 and can now be used (after
some harmonization between IEEE and ETSI) in Europe.

IEEE802.11a is the first wireless standard to employ packet based OFDM, based
from Lucent Technologies .OFDM was adopted as a draft 802.11a standard in
July 1998 after merging with an NTT proposal. The 802.11a standard uses the
same core protocol as the original standard, operates in 5 GHz band, and uses
a 52-subcarrier orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) with a
maximum raw data rate of 54 Mbit/s, which yields realistic net achievable
throughput in the mid-20 Mbit/s. The data rate is reduced to 48, 36, 24, 18, 12,
9 then 6 Mbit/s if required.

802.11a originally had 12/13 non-overlapping channels, 12 that can be used

indoor and 4/5 of the 12 that can be used in outdoor point to point
configurations. Recently many countries of the world are allowing operation in
the 5.47 to 5.725 GHz Band as a secondary user using a sharing method derived
in 802.11h. This will add another 12/13 Channels to the overall 5 GHz band
enabling significant overall wireless network capacity enabling the possibility of
24+ channels in some countries. 802.11a is not interoperable with 802.11b as
they operate on separate bands, except if using equipment that has a dual band
capability. Most enterprise class Access Points have dual band capability.

Using the 5 GHz band gives 802.11a a significant advantage, since the 2.4 GHz
band is heavily used to the point of being crowded. Degradation caused by such
conflicts can cause frequent dropped connections and degradation of service.

However, this high carrier frequency also brings a slight disadvantage: The
effective overall range of 802.11a is slightly less than that of 802.11b/g; 802.11a
signals cannot penetrate as far as those for 802.11b because they are absorbed
more readily by walls and other solid objects in their path and because the path
loss in signal strength is proportional to the square of the signal frequency.

On the other hand, OFDM has fundamental propagation advantages when in a

high multipath environment, such as an indoor office, and the higher
frequencies enable the building of smaller antennas with higher RF system gain
which counteract the disadvantage of a higher band of operation. The increased
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number of usable channels (4 to 8 times as many in FCC countries) and the near
absence of other interfering systems (microwave ovens, cordless phones, baby
monitors) give 802.11a significant aggregate bandwidth and reliability
advantages over 802.11b/g.

Usage of OFDM in IEEE 802.11a

Technical description

Of the 52 OFDM subcarriers, 48 are for data and 4 are pilot subcarriers with a
carrier separation of 0.3125 MHz (20 MHz/64). Each of these subcarriers can be
a BPSK, QPSK, 16-QAM or 64-QAM. The total bandwidth is 20 MHz with an
occupied bandwidth of 16.6 MHz. Symbol duration is 4 microseconds, which
includes a guard interval of 0.8 microseconds. The actual generation and
decoding of orthogonal components is done in baseband using DSP which is
then upconverted to 5 GHz at the transmitter. Each of the subcarriers could be
represented as a complex number. The time domain signal is generated by
taking an Inverse Fast Fourier transform (IFFT). Correspondingly the receiver
downconverts, samples at 20 MHz and does an FFT to retrieve the original
coefficients. The advantages of using OFDM include reduced multipath effects
in reception and increased spectral efficiency.

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High Performance LAN (Hiperlan):

HIPERLAN is a European (ETSI) standardization initiative for a HIgh PERformance

wireless Local Area Network. Radio waves are used instead of a cable as a
transmission medium to connect stations. Either, the radio transceiver is
mounted to the movable station as an add-on and no base station has to be
installed separately, or a base station is needed in addition per room. The
stations may be moved during operation-pauses or even become mobile. The
max. data rate for the user depends on the distance of the communicating
stations. With short distances (<50 m) and asynchronous transmission a data
rate of 20 Mbit/s is achieved, with up to 800 m distance a data rate of 1 Mbit/s
are provided. For connection-oriented services, e.g. video-telephony, at least
64 kbit/s are offered.

HIPERLAN is a European family of standards on digital high speed wireless

communication in the 5.15-5.3 GHz and the 17.1-17.3 GHz spectrum developed
by ETSI.

HiperLAN 1 defines Data Link Layer and Physical Layer. For Local Area Networks,
Data Link Layer is further divided into two sublayers: the Logical Link Control
(LLC) and the Medium Access Control (MAC). HiperLAN 1 only deals with MAC
and PHY.

An intermediate layer, the Channel Access and Control (CAC) sublayer, is

introduced in the HiperLAN 1 architecture to deal with the channel access
signaling and protocol operation required supporting packet priority. A pseudo-
hierarchically independent access mechanism is achieved via active signaling in
a listen-before-talk access protocol. The Elimination-Yield Non-Preemptive
Multiple Access (EY-NPMA) mechanism codes priority level selection and
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contention resolution into a single, variable length radio pulse preceding packet
data. EY-NPMA provides good residual collision rate performance for even large
numbers of simultaneous channel contenders.

The standard serves to ensure the possible interoperability of different

manufacturers' wireless communications equipment that operate in this
spectrum. The HIPERLAN standard only describes a common air interface
including the physical layer for wireless communications equipment, while
leaving decisions on higher level configurations and functions open to the
equipment manufacturers.

The choice of frequencies allocated to HIPERLAN was part of the 5-5.30 GHz
band being allocated globally to aviation purposes. The Aviation industry only
used the 5-5.15GHz frequency, thus making the 5.15-5.30 frequency band
accessible to HIPERLAN standards.

HIPERLAN is designed to work without any infrastructure. Two stations may

exchange data directly, without any interaction from a wired (or radio-based)
infrastructure. The simplest HIPERLAN thus consists of two stations. Further, if
two HIPERLAN stations are not in radio contact with each other, they may use
a third station (i.e. the third station must relay messages between the two
communicating stations).

WATM:
Wireless ATM does not only describe a transmission technology but tries to
specify a complete communication system ,While many aspects of the IEEE
WLANs originate from the data communication community, many WATM
aspects come from the telecommunication industry . This specific situation can
be compared to the case of competition and merging with regard to the
concepts TCP/IP and ATM (IP-switching, MPLS). Similar to fixed networks where
ATM never made it to the desktop, WATM will not make it to mobile terminals.
However, many concepts found in WATM can also be found in QoS supporting
WLANs such as HiperLAN2

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Generic reference model for wireless mobile access to an ATM network.

Figure above shows a generic reference model for wireless mobile access to an
ATM network. A mobile ATM (MATM) terminal uses a WATM terminal adapter
to gain wireless access to a WATM RAS (Radio Access System). MATM terminals
could be represented by, e.g., laptops using an ATM adapter for wired access
plus software for mobility. The WATM terminal adapter enables wireless access,
i.e., it includes the transceiver etc., but it does not support mobility. The RAS
with the radio transceivers is connected to a mobility enhanced ATM switch
(EMAS-E), which in turn connects to the ATM network with mobility aware
switches (EMAS-N) and other standard ATM switches. Finally, a wired, non-
mobility aware ATM end system may be the communication partner in this
example.

The radio segment spans from the terminal and the terminal adapter to the
access point, whereas the fixed network segment spans from the access point
to
the fixed end system. The fixed mobility support network, comprising all
mobility aware switches EMAS-E and EMAS-N, can be distinguished from the
standard ATM network with its non-mobility aware switches and end systems.

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Hiperlan 2:

A new set of standards are under construction for a new version of HIPERLAN -
HIPERLAN2. The idea of HIPERLAN2 is to be compatible with ATM.

There is also undergoing work to establish global sharing rules. The WINForum
for NII/SUPERNET in the US aim to support HIPERLAN 1 and HIPERLAN 2. This
effort involves interaction between ETSI RES10, WINForum, ATM Forum.

HIPERLAN/2 (HIgh PErformance Radio Local Area Network type 2) platform is a

Wireless LAN and it is considered as an in-door network where users would
demand improved services in terms of data rates and quality. HIPERLAN/2 is an
ETSI standard designed to enable wireless access to different networks such as
IP, UMTS and ATM. HIPERLAN/2 will allow user mobility inside a building
maintaining certain level of Quality of Service (QoS).

The protocol stack

The HIPERLAN/2 protocol stack consists of the following layers:

Physical layer: An OFDM-based Physical Layer capable in providing up to 54

Mbps transfer rate for both the uplink and downlink.

DLC layer: Its main function is to transfer the data to the physical layer in an
efficient manner. This can be achieved by prioritizing the use of the shared
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medium. This layer uses retransmission mechanisms, priorities for different
flows of data, error control mechanisms, maintenance of the wireless link
(status of each separate connection, accept/reject new calls for resources) etc.

Convergence layer (CL): In this layer a conversion of the IP, UMTS or ATM data
into DLC packets has to be performed. CL is divided into sublayers: the Service
Specific Convergence Sublyer (which is attached to the higher layers) and the
Common Part (which is attached to the DLC layer). The SSCS performs the
mapping for each particular technology (e.g. IP, Ethernet, ATM) while the CP
takes care of segmentation and reassembly among other functionalities.

The higher layers can be IP, ATM, UMTS or Ethernet. For each particular case a
certain SSCS has to be developed.

Comparison of features of HIPERLAN 1 and HIPERLAN 2 :

Features of HIPERLAN/1:
• Operates at 5GHz
• Supports data rate upto 19 Mbps.
• It uses SC (Single Carrier) modulation such as GMSK.
• It uses complex equalizer to take care of delay spread.

Features of HIPERLAN/2:
• Operates at 5GHz with 455MHz bandwidth.
• Supports data rate of 6 Mbps to 54 Mbps similar to 802.11a
• it uses multi carrier (i.e. OFDM) modulation like 802.11a

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• It uses two bands one for indoor use and the other for outdoor use with
power at 200 milliWatt and 1 Watt respectively.

Bluetooth is a wireless technology standard used for exchanging data between

fixed and mobile devices over short distances using short-wavelength UHF radio
waves in the industrial, scientific and medical radio bands, from 2.400 to
2.485 GHz, and building personal area networks (PANs). It was originally
conceived as a wireless alternative to RS-232 data cables.

Bluetooth Works:

Bluetooth Network consists of a Personal Area Network or a piconet which

contains a minimum of 2 to maximum of 8 bluetooth peer devices- Usually a
single master and upto 7 slaves. A master is the device which initiates
communication with other devices. The master device governs the
communications link and traffic between itself and the slave devices associated
with it. A slave device is the device that responds to the master device. Slave
devices are required to synchronize their transmit/receive timing with that of
the masters. In addition, transmissions by slave devices are governed by the
master device (i.e., the master device dictates when a slave device may
transmit). Specifically, a slave may only begin its transmissions in a time slot

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immediately following the time slot in which it was addressed by the master, or
in a time slot explicitly reserved for use by the slave device.

The frequency hopping sequence is defined by the Bluetooth device address

(BD_ADDR) of the master device. The master device first sends a radio signal
asking for response from the particular slave devices within the range of
addresses. The slaves respond and synchronize their hop frequency as well as
clock with that of the master device.

Scatternets are created when a device becomes an active member of more than
one piconet. Essentially, the adjoining device shares its time slots among the
different piconets.

A scatternet is a number of interconnected piconets that supports

communication between more than 8 devices. Scatternets can be formed when
a member of one piconet (either the master or one of the slaves) elects to
participate as a slave in a second, separate piconet. The device participating in
both piconets can relay data between members of both ad hoc networks.
However, the basic Bluetooth protocol does not support this relaying - the host
software of each device would need to manage it. Using this approach, it is
possible to join together numerous piconets into a large scatternet, and to
expand the physical size of the network beyond Bluetooth's limited range.

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 Protocol Stack of Bluetooth

The core specification consists of the following layers:

 Radio: Radio specifies the requirements for radio transmission – including

frequency, modulation, and power characteristics – for a Bluetooth
transceiver.
 Baseband Layer: It defines physical and logical channels and link types
(voice or data); specifies various packet formats, transmit and receive
timing, channel control, and the mechanism for frequency hopping (hop
selection) and device addressing. It specifies point to point or point to
multipoint links. The length of a packet can range from 68 bits (shortened
access code) to a maximum of 3071 bits.
 LMP- Link Manager Protocol (LMP): defines the procedures for link set up
and ongoing link management.
 Host Controller Interface (HCI) The HCI provides a command interface to
the baseband controller and link manager, and access to hardware status
and control registers. Essentially this interface provides a uniform method
of accessing the Bluetooth baseband capabilities.
 Logical Link Control and Adaptation Protocol (L2CAP): is responsible for
adapting upper-layer protocols to the baseband layer.
 Service Discovery Protocol (SDP): – allows a Bluetooth device to query
other Bluetooth devices for device information, services provided, and the
characteristics of those services.

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  The Bluetooth protocol RFCOMM is a simple set of transport protocols,
made on top of the L2CAP protocol, providing emulated RS-232 serial
ports (up to sixty simultaneous connections to a Bluetooth device at a
time).

WPAN - IEEE 802.15.4 is a technical standard which defines the operation of

low-rate wireless personal area networks (LR-WPANs). It specifies the physical
layer and media access control for LR-WPANs.It is the basis for the Zigbee,
ISA100.11a, WirelessHART, MiWi, 6LoWPAN, Thread and SNAP specifications,
each of which further extends the standard by developing the upper layers
which are not defined in IEEE 802.15.4. In particular, 6LoWPAN defines a
binding for the IPv6 version of the Internet Protocol (IP) over WPANs, and is
itself used by upper layers like Thread.

IEEE standard 802.15.4 intends to offer the fundamental lower network layers
of a type of wireless personal area network (WPAN) which focuses on low-cost,
low-speed ubiquitous communication between devices. It can be contrasted
with other approaches, such as Wi-Fi, which offer more bandwidth and require
more power. The emphasis is on very low cost communication of nearby
devices with little to no underlying infrastructure, intending to exploit this to
lower power consumption even more.

The basic framework conceives a 10-meter communications range with a

transfer rate of 250 kbit/s. Tradeoffs are possible to favor more radically
embedded devices with even lower power requirements, through the definition
of not one, but several physical layers. Lower transfer rates of 20 and 40 kbit/s
were initially defined, with the 100 kbit/s rate being added in the current
revision.

Even lower rates can be considered with the resulting effect on power
consumption. As already mentioned, the main identifying feature of IEEE
802.15.4 among WPANs is the importance of achieving extremely low
manufacturing and operation costs and technological simplicity, without
sacrificing flexibility or generality.

Important features include real-time suitability by reservation of Guaranteed

Time Slots (GTS), collision avoidance through CSMA/CA and integrated support
for secure communications. Devices also include power management functions
20
such as link quality and energy detection. The standard does have provisions for
supporting time and rate sensitive applications because of its ability to operate
in pure CSMA/CA or TDMA access modes. The TDMA mode of operation is
supported via the GTS feature of the standard.

IEEE 802.15.4 protocol stack

The physical layer (PHY) ultimately provides the data transmission service, as
well as the interface to the physical layer management entity, which offers
access to every layer management function and maintains a database of
information on related personal area networks. Thus, the PHY manages the
physical RF transceiver and performs channel selection and energy and signal
management functions.

The medium access control (MAC) enables the transmission of MAC frames
through the use of the physical channel. Besides the data service, it offers a
management interface and itself manages access to the physical channel and
network beaconing. It also controls frame validation, guarantees time slots and
handles node associations. Finally, it offers hook points for secure services.

The IEEE 802.2 standards for Logical Link Control define a programming
interface between that part of the communications software that controls the
network interface card (the Media Access Control and Physical Medium
Dependent components) and the overlying protocol stack
Node types:

The standard defines two types of network node.

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The first one is the full-function device (FFD). It can serve as the coordinator of
a personal area network just as it may function as a common node. It
implements a general model of communication which allows it to talk to any
other device: it may also relay messages, in which case it is dubbed a
coordinator (PAN coordinator when it is in charge of the whole network).

On the other hand, there are reduced-function devices (RFD). These are meant
to be extremely simple devices with very modest resource and communication
requirements; due to this, they can only communicate with FFDs and can never
act as coordinators.

Topologies

Networks can be built as either peer-to-peer or star networks. However, every

network needs at least one FFD to work as the coordinator of the network.
Networks are thus formed by groups of devices separated by suitable distances.
Each device has a unique 64-bit identifier, and if some conditions are met, short
16-bit identifiers can be used within a restricted environment. Namely, within
each PAN domain, communications will probably use short identifiers.

Wireless USB is a short-range, high-bandwidth wireless radio communication

protocol. Wireless USB was based on the (now defunct) WiMedia Alliance's
Ultra-WideBand (UWB) common radio platform, which is capable of sending
480 Mbit/s at distances up to 3 metres (9.8 ft) and 110 Mbit/s at up to 10
metres (33 ft). It was designed to operate in the 3.1 to 10.6 GHz frequency
range, although local regulatory policies may restrict the legal operating range
in some countries.

Wireless USB is used in game controllers, printers, scanners, digital cameras,

portable media players, hard disk drives and USB flash drives. It is also suitable
for transferring parallel video streams, using USB over ultra-wideband
protocols.

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  The function layer only suffers minor changes to increase efficiency and
support isochronism.
 The device layer includes wireless-oriented security and device
management features.
 The bus layer does not change its functionality, but is substantially
adapted for efficiency and security on wireless networks.

ZIGBEE:
Zigbee communication is specially built for control and sensor networks on IEEE
802.15.4 standard for wireless personal area networks (WPANs), and it is the
product from Zigbee alliance. This communication standard defines physical
and Media Access Control (MAC) layers to handle many devices at low-data
rates. These Zigbee’s WPANs operate at 868 MHz, 902-928MHz and 2.4 GHz
frequencies. The date rate of 250 kbps is best suited for periodic as well as
intermediate two way transmission of data between sensors and controllers.

Zigbee is low-cost and low-powered mesh network widely deployed for

controlling and monitoring applications where it covers 10-100 meters within
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the range. This communication system is less expensive and simpler than the
other proprietary short-range wireless sensor networks as Bluetooth and Wi-
Fi.

Zigbee supports different network configurations for master to master or

master to slave communications. And also, it can be operated in different
modes as a result the battery power is conserved. Zigbee networks are
extendable with the use of routers and allow many nodes to interconnect with
each other for building a wider area network.

Zigbee Architecture

Zigbee system structure

Zigbee system structure consists of three different types of devices such as

Zigbee coordinator, Router and End device. Every Zigbee network must consist
of at least one coordinator which acts as a root and bridge of the network. The
coordinator is responsible for handling and storing the information while
performing receiving and transmitting data operations. Zigbee routers act as
intermediary devices that permit data to pass to and fro through them to other
devices. End devices have limited functionality to communicate with the parent
nodes such that the battery power is saved as shown in the figure. The number
of routers, coordinators and end devices depends on the type of network such
as star, tree and mesh networks.

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Physical Layer: This layer does modulation and demodulation operations up on
transmitting and receiving signals respectively. This layer’s frequency, date rate
and number of channels are given below.

MAC Layer: This layer is responsible for reliable transmission of data by

accessing different networks with the carrier sense multiple access collision
avoidance (CSMA). This also transmits the beacon frames for synchronizing
communication.

Network Layer: This layer takes care of all network related operations such as
network setup, end device connection and disconnection to network, routing,
device configurations, etc.

Application Support Sub-Layer: This layer enables the services necessary for
Zigbee device object and application objects to interface with the network
layers for data managing services. This layer is responsible for matching two
devices according to their services and needs.

Application Framework: It provides two types of data services as key value pair
and generic message services. Generic message is a developer defined
structure, whereas the key value pair is used for getting attributes within the
application objects. ZDO provides an interface between application objects and

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APS layer in Zigbee devices. It is responsible for detecting, initiating and binding
other devices to the network.
6LoWPAN

6LoWPAN (IPv6 over Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks), is a low

power wireless mesh network where every node has its own IPv6 address. This
allows the node to connect directly with the Internet using open standards.

6LoWPAN came to exist from the idea that the Internet Protocol could and
should be applied even to the smallest devices, and that low-power devices
with limited processing capabilities should be able to participate in the Internet
of Things.

 It works great with open IP standard including TCP, UDP, HTTP, COAP,
MATT and web-sockets.
 It offers end-to-end IP addressable nodes. There’s no need for a gateway,
only a router which can connect the 6LoWPAN network to IP.
 It supports self-healing, robust and scalable mesh routing.
 Offers one-to-many & many-to-one routing.
 The 6LoWPAN mesh routers can route data to others nodes in the
network.
 In a 6LowPAN network, leaf nodes can sleep for a long duration of time.
 It also offers thorough support for the PHY layer which gives freedom of
frequency band & physical layer, which can be used across multiple
communication platforms like Ethernet, WI-Fi, 802.15.4 or Sub-1GHz ISM
with interoperability at the IP level.

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  It is a standard: RFC6282

6LoWPAN Application :

With many low power wireless sensor networks and other forms of wireless
networks designed to tackle specific problems, it is essential that any new
wireless system has a defined area which it addresses. While there are many
forms of wireless networks including wireless sensor networks, 6LoWPAN
addresses an area that is currently not addressed by any other system, for
example, that of using IP, and in particular IPv6 to carry the data.

The overall system is aimed at providing wireless internet connectivity at low

data rates and with a low duty cycle. However, there are many applications
where 6LoWPAN is being used:

 Automation: There are enormous opportunities for 6LoWPAN to be used

in many different areas of automation.
 Industrial monitoring: Industrial plants and automated factories provide a
great opportunity for 6LoWPAN. Major savings can be made by using
automation in every day practices. Additionally, 6LoWPAN can connect to
the cloud which opens up many different areas for data monitoring and
analysis.
 Smart Grid: Smart grids enable smart meters and other devices to build a
micro mesh network. They are able to send data back to the grid
operator’s monitoring and billing system using the IPv6.
 Smart Home: By connecting your home IoT devices using IPv6, it is
possible to gain distinct advantages over other IoT systems.

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WirelessHART:

WirelessHART uses a 2.4 GHz band—license-free and used worldwide—as a

transfer medium for several radio technologies, including WLAN, Bluetooth,
and ZigBee. But, WirelessHART is much more than a WLAN variant.

WirelessHART uses a flat mesh network where all radio stations (field devices)
form a network. Every participating station serves simultaneously as a signal
source and a repeater. The original transmitter sends a message to its nearest
neighbor, which passes the message on until the message reaches the base
station and the actual receiver. In addition, alternative routes are set up in the
initialization phase. If the message cannot be transmitted on a particular path,
due to an obstacle or a defective receiver, the message is automatically passed
to an alternative route. So, in addition to extending the range of the network,
the flat mesh network provides redundant communication routes to increase
reliability.

The communication in the Wireless Network is coordinated with TDMA (Time

Division Multiple Access), which synchronizes the network participants in 10 ms
timeframes. This enables a very reliable (collision-free) network, and reduces
the lead and lag times during which a station must be active.

To avoid jamming, WirelessHART uses also FHSS (Frequency Hopping Spread

Spectrum). All 15 channels as defined in IEEE802.15.4 are used in parallel;
WirelessHART uses FHSS to “hop” across these channels. Channels that are
already in use are blacked out to avoid collisions with other wireless
communication systems.

The combination of 10s synchronization and 15 channels allows 1500

communications per second.

WirelessHART is the symbiosis between the much used and proven HART and
the new radio technology – at least new to process technology. In addition to
the well-known HART application for device parameterization, HART has
already been widely used for:

 Monitoring of instrument and environmental values

 Asset management and optimization
 Preventive maintenance
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  Performance monitoring
 Energy management

The requirements of these applications in terms of availability, transmission

paths and speeds are well-matched by the performance capability achievable
by radio technology. And the WirelessHART concept also offers a seamless
integration in the existing infrastructure, with simultaneous openness with
respect to new structures.

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