Performance Analysis of IEEE 802.15.4 MAC Protocol Under Light Traffic Condition in IoT Environment

Abstract

In this paper, we propose analytic models for throughput and latency performance of the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC protocol operating under very low duty cycles In the Internet of Things applications. Our analytic models are intended for IEEE 802.15.4 MAC protocol in beacon-enabled star topology with light traffic conditions. Accuracy of the analytic models are verified through extensive simulations using the network simulator ns-2. A strong agreement between simulation results and our theoretical analysis is observed. In addition, we compare throughput and latency performance of two different CSMA/CA protocols in IEEE 802.15.4 and IEEE 802.11. This is motivated by a significant discrepancy of the CSMA/CA mechanism: IEEE 802.15.4 and IEEE 802.11. We observe a remarkable difference in throughput between two protocols. The simulation results also demonstrate an interesting fact that increasing the packet size will degrade the throughput of IEEE 802.15.4 due to the nature of the CSMA/CA mechanism, while a throughput improvement is usually expected.