|
|
Home > Communications > Wireless > Networking
Wireless Personal Area Networks: Applications, Assessment Technologies and Markets
|
| Published Date:
June 2007
Published By:
Practel, Inc.
Order Code:
R606-58
|
|
|
|
This report addresses marketing and technical issues of WPANs as well as their applications.
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
-UWB, and
-Bluetooth.
802.15.4 (ZigBee) is exchanging rate of transmission for power. 802.15.4 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.
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, advocated by the UWB Forum; and MB-OFDM, advocated by the WiMedia Alliance. UWB is still in its first stages of commercial deployment, but already is making its introduction to the WPAN market.
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 deploy the middleware components on top of a variant of the WiMedia UWB standard. 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 Networks), where information is coded by changes in the skin characteristics.
The report also discusses a variety of WPAN applications, starting from home automation and going to homeland security and first responders communications.
The report also examines marketing issues of WPAN, and shows that these networks have a bright future.
|
Similar Products
• MarketWatch: Telecoms
Published Nov 2008 by Datamonitor
• Wireless Telecommunications Services
Published Nov 2008 by First Research, Inc.
• NFC (Near Field Communications)
Published Nov 2008 by IDATE
• North American Mass Notification System Services Market
Published Oct 2008 by Frost & Sullivan
• The New Rules of M2M:Q&A from CTIA 2008’s M2M Sessions
Published Oct 2008 by Yankee Group
• European Wireless M2m Market, Third Edition,The
Published Oct 2008 by Berg Insight
• U.S. & EU HLS Communications Interoperability Markets & Technology Forecast - 2008-2012
Published Oct 2008 by Homeland Security Research Corporation
• China Digital Mobile Communication Exchanger Market Analysis
Published Oct 2008 by Reports From China
• Mobile Navigation Services
Published Oct 2008 by Berg Insight
• Asia Pacific Mobile Satellite Services Markets
Published Sep 2008 by Frost & Sullivan
|
|
|
|
0 items
