A Markov Model for characterizing IEEE 802.15.4 MAC Layer in Noisy Environments

The IEEE 802.15.4 standard represents one of the most successful technologies for enabling low-rate wireless personal area networks (LR-WPANs). Accordingly, the properties of its protocols (at physical and MAC layers) have been widely studied in the scientific literature to derive performance bounds on throughput, delays, and frame losses. At the same time, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, a complete characterization of the frame-error-rate process, including also the correlation among loss events, is still missing. This kind of investigation is particularly relevant in noisy industrial environments, which, as well known, introduce bursty frame losses. To this end, this paper proposes a Markov model to account for the different changing conditions under which an IEEE 802.15.4 channel is seen at the MAC layer. The model is able to reproduce synthetic traces having a cumulative distribution function and an autocorrelation coefficient that closely resemble experimental measurements. In this way, it becomes a valuable tool for further refining existing theoretical models and simulation platforms for IEEE 802.15.4 LR-WPANs and for helping the designer and researcher working on industrial Internet of things.