Analysis of Scatternet Formation in High-Rate Multi-Hop WPANS

In WPANs the network coverage can be extended by the formation of scatternets. As numerous papers related to Bluetooth pointed out, the performance of a WPAN highly depends on the scatternet structure. However, for high-rate WPANs (IEEE 802.15.3) the issue of scatternet formation remains unsolved. In this paper we study the performance implications of different scatternet topologies. Our analysis consisted of two levels: analytical (abstract) and practical. For the analytical level we built scatternets with integer linear programming (ILP) and heuristic methods. To see how these scatternets perform on practical level (in realistic conditions) performance analysis based on ns2 simulations was used. Our results reveal important relationships between the performance aspects and the construction of scatternets, which can serve as general guidelines for scatternet formation algorithm design