Performance analysis of 2.4GHz IEEE 802.15.4 PHY under various fading channels

Abstract

IEEE 802.15.4 is the set of standards specified by the IEEE in 2003, for ultra-low complexity, low power and low date rate wireless personal area networks (LR-WPAN). These standards are used to specify the physical layer (PHY) and medium access layer (MAC) of Zigbee wireless network protocol. IEEE 802.15.4 specifies three frequency bands of operation: 868 MHz, 915 MHz and the 2.4GHz unlicensed industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) band. In the present paper, we discuss implementation of the physical layer at 2.4GHz band using Offset Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (OQPSK) modulation with Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) technique and also analyze its performance under AWGN channel, Rayleigh and Rician fading channels. Implementation part includes the design of transceiver and performance analysis is done by comparing bit error rate (BER) of the transceiver with signal to noise ratio (SNR) for the above mentioned channels