Performance Evaluation of Time-Triggered IEEE 802.15.4 for Wireless Industrial Network

This paper focuses on the experimental performance evaluation of the IEEE 802.15.4 using time division multiplexing access (TDMA) method to satisfy real-time requirements. The IEEE 802.15.4 protocol is considered to be unsuitable for industrial networks because its medium access control method is contention-based CSMA/CA, which exhibits unstable performance with an unbounded delay distribution under heavy traffic. To avoid these limitations, this paper presents a time-triggered version of IEEE 802.15.4 that relies on a time division multiplexing access method implemented in the application layer. This time-triggered IEEE 802.15.4 was implemented experimentally.