Analysis of multi-band UWB distributed beaconing over fading channels

In the past ten years, ultra wideband (UWB) technology has attracted great attention from academia and industry to enable a large number of applications. Typically, UWB was candidate to deliver home connectivity, sensor networks and body area networks. As UWB enabled devices operate in unlicensed mode, standardization efforts have been carried out in different parts of the globe to regulate their use in different contexts. ECMA-368 is an industry led standard for high data rate UWB communications. One of the key managing features of this standard is the so called distributed beaconing. In this paper, we analyze the distributed beaconing mechanism of ECMA-368. We focus on the transient phase in which newcomer devices attempt to join a network by accessing the standard defined beacon period. The joining procedure with which devices access the network is modeled by means of an embedded absorbing Markov chain. The relevant issue of modeling the miss-detection of beacon frames transmitted over fading channels is also assessed. Performance evaluation of distributed beaconing is given in terms of energy consumption. The required overhead for network setup is also analyzed.