A comparison between configuration strategies for IEEE 802.15.4 low-latency networks

The application of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) in industrial environments, with strict requirements of latency and data integrity, is a challenging topic for which IEEE 802.15.4e provides some MAC layers targeted to fulfill these requirements. While much work has been done to reduce the worst-case latency, little effort has been put in analyzing the setup procedures of the network, which can be an interesting topic for applications where setup or reconfiguration dynamics are relevant; an example of such an application is a localization system based on ranging measurements from nodes in a WSN, in an environment where ranging accuracy is low and nodes are dense, allowing dynamic reconfiguration of the network depending on the position of the target. This paper analyses two different configuration strategies, depending on the superframe composition in a time-slotted beacon-enabled WSN.