Improvements of IEEE 802.15.4a for usage in automation systems

Using UWB for wireless short range, low rate communication is attracting growing interest due to its low power consumption and very high bandwidth. Regarding these qualities, it is comprehensible that automation industry´s interest to use ultra wideband based on wireless sensor nodes increases. Those shall replace wired systems in order to save energy and other costs without reducing the reliability of the whole system. For this reason, optimizations of the standard IEEE.802.15.4a were investigated in this paper with particular emphasis on latency, data rate, energy efficiency, and reliability. This paper demonstrates the optimization potential of the official standard IEEE.802.15.4a. Different methods for optimization are investigated and combined.