Connection Data Rate Optimization of IEEE 802.15.3 Scatternets with Multi-rate Carriers

The IEEE 802.15.3 MAC is designed for high data rate wireless personal area networks (WPANs), in which all communications within a piconet work in a peer-to-peer manner. In this paper, we analyze the link rate distribution of a piconet, and show that the expected piconet link rate for a UWB based 802.15.3 piconet decreases with the piconet radius. Furthermore, the effective scatternet connection rate is defined to optimize the piconet coverage within a scatternet. Analytical and simulation results show that the direct peer-to-peer communications in 802.15.3 bring a huge gain on the expected data rate of intrapiconet links, and a medium sized piconet radius optimizes the scatternet connection data rate given the number of logical channels available.