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Wireless Personal Area Networks: Applications, Assessment Technologies and Markets

Product Type: Market Research Report
Published by: Practel, Inc.
Published: June 2007
Product Code: R606-58
Description
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.
Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction

1.1Beginning

1.2 Networking

1.3 Definition

1.4 4G and WPAN

1.5 Scope

1.6 Research Methodology

1.7 Target Audience 9

2.0 WPAN and Radio Technologies

2.1 Ultra Wide Band

2.1.1 General

2.1.2 Obstacles

2.1.3 Benefits

2.1.4 Definition

2.1.5 Rates

2.1.6 Spectrum Allocation

2.1.7 Choices

2.1.8 Major Features

2.1.9 Standards and Regulations

2.1.10 Major Applications

2.1.11 Market Estimate

2.1.12 UWB and WLAN

2.1.13 Industry

Aether (localization devices-ITS)

Alereon (chipsets)

Artimi (chipsets)

BBN (radio, first responders applications)

Camero (radar, equipment for first responders)

decaWave (chipsets)

Focus Enhancement (chipsets)

Freescale (chipsets, systems)

General Atomics (chipsets)

Multispectral (RFID and others)

Parco (RFID)

Pulse~ Link (chipsets)

RealTek

Staccato (chipsets)

TriQuint (chipsets - homeland security applications)

Time Domain (chipsets-fusion of communications & radar)

Tzero (chipsets)

Ubisense (RFID-tracking)

Wisair (chipsets)

WiQuest (chipsets)

2.2 ZigBee

2.2.1 General

2.2.2 Device Types

2.2.3 Protocol Stack

2.2.4 Upper Layers

2.2.5 Interoperability

2.2.6 Security

2.2.7 Platform Considerations

2.2.8 Technology Benefits and Limitations

2.2.9 Standardization Process

2.2.10 ZigBee Role

2.2.11 Market

2.2.12 Industry

AeroComm

Airbee (Software)

Amber (RF Systems)

Atmel (Chipsets)

Chipcon -TI (Chipsets)

Cirronet (Modules Industrial Automation)

CrossBow

Duolog (Transceivers)

Eazix (Modules)

Ember (Chipsets)

Falcom (Modules)

Helicomm (Modules)

Jennic (Chipsets-Modules)

Freescale (Chipsets)

Luxoft Labs (Integration)

M&R Lawugger GmbH (Software)

Maxstream (WSN Modules)

Nanotron (Chipsets)

Oki (Chipsets)

Renesas (Platforms)

Silicon Laboratories (Chipsets, Modules)

Telegesis (Integrator)

Uniband (Chipsets)

ZMD (Chipsets)

3.3 IEEE 802.15.1 (Bluetooth)

3.3.1 Transport layer

3.3.2 Baseband and Link Layers

3.3.3 Middleware Layer

2.3.4 Bluetooth Security

2.3.5 Highlights

2.4 NFC-Near-Field Communications

3.0 Standardization Process for WPAN

3.1 IEEE 802.15 WPAN Task Group 3 (TG3)

3.2 IEEE 802.15.4

3.2.1 Requirements

3.2.2 Properties

3.2.3 IEEE 802.15.4 in Wireless Family

3.2.4 Relationship between IEEE 802.15.4 and ZigBee

3.2.5 Approaches

3.3 ECMA- 368

3.4 IEEE 802.15 WPAN Millimeter Wave Alternative PHY Task Group 3c (TG3c)

3.5 IEEE 802.15 WPAN Low Rate Alternative PHY Task Group 4a (TG4a)

3.6 IEEE 802.15 WPAN Task Group 4b (TG4b)

3.7 IEEE 802.15 WPAN Task Group 5 (TG5)

3.8 The Impact of Standards

4.0 WPAN Technologies

4.1 Definition

4.2 Types

4.3 WPAN and WLAN

4.4 Networking

4.5 Details

4.5.1 Alternatives to Near-field Communication

4.6 ZigBee and Bluetooth

5.0 WPAN Applications

5.1 Retailers

5.2 Route Delivery

5.3 Industrial/Commercial Applications

5.4 Ad Hoc Networking

5.4.1 Sharing Data In Meetings

5.5 Body-Centric Communication

5.5.1 Intra-Body Communications

5.6 Public Safety Communications (PSC)

5.7 Space

5.8 Healthcare

5.9 Gaming

6.0 Market

6.1 Driving Forces

6.2 Market Estimate

7.0 Industry

Airbee (Software)

Dynastream Innovations Inc. (Acquired by Garmin in 2006)

iDent

Nokia

NTT

Intermec

8.0 Conclusions

Figures

Figure 1: WPAN and Other Technologies: Illustration

Figure 2: UWB Spectrum

Figure 3: Market Estimate: UWB Circuitry ($B)

Figure 4: Market Estimate: Multiband OFDM UWB Circuitry ($B)

Figure 5: Market Estimate: DS UWB Circuitry ($B)

Figure 6: Estimate of UWB Market - Communications Applications ($B)

Figure 7: ZigBee Protocol Stack

Figure 8: Estimate: ZigBee Chipsets Market Worlwide ($M)

Figure 9: ZigBee Market Segmentation (2006)

Figure 10: ZigBee Market Segmentation (2010)

Figure 11: Bluetooth Protocol Stack

Figure 12: Piconets Illustration

Figure 13: WPAN Market Estimate ($B)

Figure 14: WPAN Market-Technology Sectors (2007-2011)

Figure 15: WPAN Market- Geography Segmentation (2007-2011)

Figure 16: WPAN Market - Major Applications Segmentation (2007-2011)

Tables

Table 1: Comparison: DS-UWB and MB-OFDM

Table 2: Parameters

Table 3: Comparison

Table 4: IEEE802.15.4 Standard Properties

Table 5: IEEE 802.15.4 and Competition

Table 6: ISO and IEEE 802xx

Table 7: ISO and IEEE 802.15

Table 8: WPAN Family of Standards

Table 9: Regulations for Unlicensed Operation in the2.4 5GHz Band

Table 10: Regulations for Unlicensed Operation in the 5GHz Band
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