Energy consumption of the IEEE Std 802.15.3 MAC protocol in communication link set-up over UWB radio technology

Ultra Wide-Band (UWB) is a promising physical layer technology which potentially will enable low power, low cost devices with applications for Personal Area Networks (WPAN) and for Body Area Networks (BAN). One of the main UWB technology candidates, Impulse-Radio (IR-UWB), utilizes very short time domain pulses which are low power and difficult to detect. This raises the question of how to design an efficient MAC protocol to harness the potential of the physical layer. For high data rate WPAN applications, the IEEE 802.15.3 protocol has been proposed as a suitable MAC. This paper examines the overhead associated with the IEEE 802.15.3 MAC protocol when used in conjunction with UWB radio technology. Particular features of the protocol examined include establishing, modifying and terminating a data stream. This paper investigates the overhead introduced in term of the energy consumption to manage the communication links. Simulation results are presented in which the source rate and the number of devices in the network have been varied.