This report addresses marketing and technical issues of WPANs as well as their applications. This is the second issue of the report; information is updated and the analysis of the Near Field Communications (for WPAN applications) is added.
WPANs represent a significant shift in wireless networking technology, which has generally been targeted at devices like laptops where power consumption is not a major issue. WPAN technology emphasizes constructing reliable links over low-power radios, but often at the cost of a reduced data rate compared to Wi-Fi. The networks define a new paradigm - the user becomes “enveloped” by a network bubble, which “attached” to a user and moves along with his/her movements.
Wireless networking standards like 802.11b and 802.16 typically focus on providing PC-to-PC or PC-to-ISP connectivity over the range of a building or even a metropolitan area. However, many applications have far less stringent range requirements, such as connecting peripherals wirelessly to a mobile device or adding components to a home theater system. Wireless Personal Area Networks are a perfect fit for these applications: they offer a wide variety of data rates, low power consumption and are supported by several transmission technologies.
In this report, we discussed the following approaches to WPAN radio:
ZigBee
NFC
UWB, and
Bluetooth.
802.15.4 (ZigBee) is exchanging rate of transmission for power. 802.15.4 radio offers data rates of up to 250 Kb/s, and can easily support links with a very low duty cycle. Hence, it is suitable for deployment in battery-powered devices that must survive for up to several years between charges/changes of a power supply. 802.15.4 has already found wide acceptance in the wireless sensor network community, and used also in WPANs for a variety of applications.
NFC technology is evolving as a leading technology for very short distances of communications. Near Field Communication is a standards-based, short-range wireless connectivity technology that enables simple and safe two-way interactions among electronic devices. NFC technology allows consumers to perform contactless transactions, access digital content and connect devices with the simplicity of a single touch. WPAN and Body WPAN applications of this technology are becoming very important.
UWB radios emit low-power, high-bandwidth pulses that deliver data rates comparable to wired Ethernet (100 Mb/s and up). Its high data rates and low power consumption make it ideal for replacing short wired links. Unfortunately, IEEE standardization of UWB has failed (so far), resulting in two incompatible standards: DS-UWB that was advocated by the UWB Forum; and MB-OFDM, advocated by the WiMedia Alliance. The UWB market is still immature, but already includes WPAN applications.
The early entry into the WPAN paradigm, Bluetooth, has already been widely deployed in hundreds of millions of devices. It offers data rates of up to 3 Mb/s and ranges of up to 100 m, with far lower power consumption than 802.11b. Its middleware layer builds on top of the PHY and MAC layers to provide a high degree of interoperability among Bluetooth-equipped devices. This low power consumption and interoperability guarantee have fueled Bluetooth's acceptance in the WPANs. It is important to note the days of the 802.15.1 radio layer may be numbered. The Bluetooth SIG has recently announced plans to abandon the 802.15.1 PHY and MAC layers in some future version of the Bluetooth standard, and instead to deploy the middleware components on top of a variant of the WiMedia UWB standard (though now it is revising this direction in favor of the 802.11n technology). Depending on how the radio stack is implemented, this shift may increase Bluetooth's data rate by many times, cutting power consumption.
This report also shows that WPAN technologies are in the process of development and research, and such technologies as NFC and Wibee are examples to this statement. Enhancements of low-powered wireless technologies that we are witnessing in the resent years made it possible to talk even about such transmission environments as a human body (Wireless Body Area Networks-IEEE802.15.6), where information is coded, for example, by changes in the skin characteristics.
The report also discusses a variety of WPAN applications: from home automation to homeland security and first responders’ communications; and examines marketing issues of WPAN and applicable radio technologies that support this class of network.
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