Analyzing and Evaluating Contention Access Period of Slotted CSMA/CA for IEEE802.15.4

IEEE standard 802.15.4 is widely studied due to its huge applicability. This vary study is based upon analyzing techniques and methodology discussed in IEEE 802.15.4 standard in context of contention access period. According to standard specifications, there are two minor differences in CSMA/CA algorithm used in CAP along with different frequency ranges. These frequency ranges are accepted in different geographical regions of this world. Considering medium access algorithm used, one flavor supports ACK frame after successful transmission and other do not. ACK mode of CSMA/ CA is widely analyzed analytically and simulated in earlier conducted researches, however, there is no study discussing behaviour of non-ACK mode. This non-ACK mode is prescribed as a different flavor in IEEE 802.15.4 for applications that do not focus on taking ACK packet after every transmission. In this work, we modify a markov chain model for non-ACK mode and compare both modes analytically followed by extensive simulations and discussions. For health care applications ACK mode shows its worth however, in streaming data or playing games, non-ACK mode can be preferred due to its lower delay, higher throughput and lower control load. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V.