Experimental Performance Evaluation of Multihop IEEE 802.15.4/4g/4e Smart Utility Networks in Outdoor Environment

Abstract

This paper presents the experimental performance evaluation results of the IEEE 802.15.4/4g/4e Smart Utility Networks (SUN) in applications suited for outdoor environment. SUN is an advanced wireless communications network designed for reliable, low data rate, and low energy consumption networks for command-and-control applications like utility service, sensor network, and so on. IEEE 802.15.4g/4e is the international standard for SUN supported by multiple utility providers and product vendors. In this paper, a comprehensive field test was conducted by employing the implementation we have developed to evaluate the performance of the SUN devices based on IEEE 802.15.4/4g/4e standard. The output power of the implementation is 250 mW for extended range, reducible to 20 mW for short-range scalability and battery preservation. Results showed that in an outdoor line-of-sight environment, the achievable one-hop range of a 50 kbps SUN device was 450 m. Next, in a non-line-of-sight environment involving typical residential concrete building, the communications could be established penetrating obstructions to reach above the 11th storey, reaching the performance degradation limits at the 20th storey. Next, the network of the SUN system was proven to be capable of supporting a typical multihop tree network in a dense populated building, meeting the required performance by the standard.

No Free Lunch—Characterizing the Performance of 6TiSCH When Using Different Physical Layers

“…In all of these related works, the PHY used is IEEE802.15.4 O-QPSK 2.4 GHz. Sum et al [ 5 ] are the exception, as they provide an experimental evaluation of IEEE802.15.4e TSCH Medium Access Control (MAC) based on IEEE802.15.4g FSK 868 MHz radio. The experiments report range and performance testing results in terms of PDR and Packet Error Rate in four situations: Line-of-Sight conditions, Non-line-of-sight conditions, tree topology in corridor setting and line topology across buildings.…”

“…Applications for low-power wireless technology are numerous, including smart building [ 1 , 2 ], environmental monitoring [ 3 ], precision agriculture [ 4 ], automated meter reading [ 5 ], indoor localization [ 6 ], smart grid [ 7 ] and predictive maintenance [ 8 ].…”

A Dataset to Evaluate IEEE 802.15.4g SUN for Dependable Low-Power Wireless Communications in Industrial Scenarios

“…Given the rising interest in dependable low-power wireless communications for industrial and smart grid applications, there are various studies that have recently focused on analyzing the performance of IEEE 802.15.4g SUN (Smart Utility Network) modulations, namely SUN-FSK (Frequency Shift Keying), SUN-OQPSK (Offset Quadrature Phase-Shift Keying), and SUN-OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing), as defined in the latest revision of the IEEE 802.15.4 standard [5]. For example, in [6][7][8], the authors studied the suitability of IEEE 802.15.4g SUN modulations for smart metering utility networks. More recently, in [9,10], the authors studied the suitability of IEEE 802.15.4g in smart building and environmental monitoring scenarios, respectively.…”

Evaluating IEEE 802.15.4g SUN for Dependable Low-Power Wireless Communications In Industrial Scenarios

“…Given the rising interest of dependable low-power wireless communications for industrial and smart grid applications, there are various studies that have recently focused on analysing the performance of IEEE 802.15.4g SUN (Smart Utility Network) modulations, namely SUN-FSK (Frequency Shift Keying), SUN-OQPSK (Offset Quadrature Phase-Shift Keying) and SUN-OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing), as defined in the latest revision of the IEEE 802.15.4 standard [5]. For example, in [6], [7] and [8] the authors study the suitability of IEEE 802.15.4g SUN modulations for smart metering utility networks. More recently, in [9] and [10] the authors study the suitability of IEEE 802.…”