Multi-radio aided topology construction for UWB-based WPAN Scatternet

Abstract

Wireless personal area network (WPAN) has been deemed one promising networking technique since diverse applications will be applicable in an ad hoc fashion in WPANs such as Bluetooth. Ultra wide band (UWB) has also become one hot research field because of its capability of supporting high-rate short-distance communications, and UWB-based WPAN has been receiving more and more research efforts recently. Though various piconet and scatternet formation algorithms have been proposed for Bluetooth-based WPAN, there is no systematical analysis and scheme for the newly emerged UWB-based WPAN, such as IEEE 802.15.3a, which exhibits some distinctions in topology construction. This paper first compares the difference of topology formation rationale and scheme between Bluetooth and UWB-based WPAN, then points out the fundamental problem pertinent to the piconet inter-connection in UWB-based WPAN. The main contribution of our work is to propose a multi-radio aided topology initialization algorithm without modification to the 802.15.3a specification. With the goal that all the participating devices get connected, the topology construction algorithm mainly includes bridge function, device positioning, and deliberate interconnections. A simulation-based study has shown that, compared with standard piconet initialization process, the network connectivity can be greatly enhanced by the proposed algorithm