2006 6th Intermational Coference on ITS Teleconuiiic&ations Proceedings

The Research o fApplyingWireless Sensor Netwrkos

to IntelligentTransportation System ITS)
Based On IEEE 802.15.4
Benliang Li

Houjun Wang

Bin Yan

Chijun Zhang

School of Automation Eiiginerg.

Uhiversity of Electronics Science and Technology of Clnina
Chengdu 610054. China
Absret- The Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) is envisioned
by linking existing and emerging technologies of computers,

wireless radio communications systems and sophisticated sensors

to be used in vehicles and roads. IEEE802.15.4 is a new standard
designed for low rate wireless personal area networks (LR PAs)
with a focus on enabling wireless sensor net'iorks for vehicular,
residental,commercial and industrial applications. This standard is
characterized for its simplicity, low data rate, low power
consumption and low cost in networks. The release of
IEEE802.15.4 is anticipated to make a significant contribution to
the application of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) to ITS. In this
article we first give a brief description of IEEE802.15.4 standard
and the characteristc of 802.15.4 for WSNs, then present a few
application scenarios in vehicles and roads to show the potential
applicability to which the new standard can be used to enable
WSNs in ITS.

I. INTRODUCTION

The Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) has grown from

its beginmings in the 1980's to become a major force in
influncxing the world in planng the future of vehicles and
vehicles-road systins. Great efforts have been made to apply
wireless sensor networks(WSNs) to the ITS[11213141516].
Compared with conventional networks, WSNs provide
advantages in deployment, cost, size, aid distributed
intelligence. WSNs technology not only enables users to set up
a network quickly, but also enables them to set up a network
where it is inconvemrent or impossible to wire cables. The "care
free" feature and convenience of deployment m*ae WSNs more
cost-efficient than wired netWoiks in general.
IEEE 802.15.4 is a new standard uniquely designed for low
rate wireless personal area netWoiks. It targets low data rate,
low power consuOmption and low cost wireless sensor netwtorks
and offers device level wireless connectivity.The release of
IEEE 802.15.4-Wireless Medium Access Control (MAC) and
Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications for Low Rate Wireless
Personal Area Networks (LR-WPANs) [7] represents a
milestone in wireless sensor networks. The ITS will benefit
from the appearance of the new standard in Vehicles and
Vehicles-road Communication based on wireless sensor
networks. The wireless sensor networks, completely distributed
and depending on EEE 802.15.4, will allow the fast and cheap
developinent of ITS in many fields.
Section II of this paper presents a brief technical description
of 802.15.4. In Section III, we ouline the claracteristc of
0-7803-9586-7/06/$20.00 C2006 IEEE.

93

802.15.4 for WSNs. Then, in Section IV, we presnt a few

application scenarios of the use of WSNs in ITS. Conclusions

are presented in SectionV.

II A TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION OF 802.15.4.

The new standard, IEEE 802.15.4. defines the physical layer

medium access conitrol (MAC) sublayer
specifications for low data rate wireless connectivity with fixed,
portable and moving devices with no battery or very limited
battery consumption requirements tNpically operating in the
personal operating space (POS) of lOm or less. The standard
uses carier sense multiple access with a collision avoidance
medium access mechanism and supports star as well as
peer-to-peer topologies. The media access is contetion based,
however, using the optional superframe sticture, time slots can
be allocated by the PAN cootdinator to devices with titme
cntical data.
In the following subsections, we give a bnef overview of the
PHY layer and MAC sublayer. Detailed information can be
found in reference[7].
A. PHYLayr
IEEE 802.15.4 specifies tWo PHYs: an 868/915M}Iz direct
seqnence spread spectrum (DSSS) PHY and 2450M1Z DSSS

(PHY) ad

PHY. The 868/915 MHz PHY snpports over-the-air data rates

of 20 kb/s and 40 kb/s, and die 2450MHz PHY supports an
over-the-air data rate of 250 kb/s. The charactenstic of DSSS
allows the use of low-cost digital IC realizations.The PHY
chosen depends on local regulations and user preference.
A total of 27 channels, numbered 0 to 26. are available across
th three frequency bands. Sixteen channels are axailable in the
2450 MHz band, 10 in the 915 MHz band, and 1 in the 868
MIFHz baid. The center frequency of ftese channels is defined as
follows:
lY = 868.3 in megahertz, for k 0O
1% = 906 + 2 (k - 1) in megahertz, for k = 1,2,.. 10
and Fc = 2405 + 5 (k - 1 1) in megahertz, for k =1 In 12,..., 26
where k is the channel number.
The visualizafion of th chanlIs are slhown in figure 1.
Two different device types are designed in EEE 802.15.4. a
full-function device (FFD) and a reduced-fnnction device (RED).
The FFD can operate in three modes serving as a personal area
network (PAN) coordinator, a coordinator or a device. A FFD

~ ~ ~ ~ ~f1MH4

can talk to RFDs or other FFDs, xwhile an RED cani talk orly to
Channelsi

2A4 GHz
PHY:

902I0

Chann4ls 11 26

FFD. A

9280
|

5MHZ

2483 5

2400.0
an

f~~~~
(MHz)

18

86O13 .W&cls.Li
8680

M0

Figure 1-The visualization of the channels

RED is intended for applications that are

extremely

simple, suich as a light switch or a passive infiared sensor, which

does not have the need to send large amounts of data and may
only associate with a single FFD at a time. Consequently, the

RED

can be

capacity.

implemented using minimal resources and memory

on the application requireinents, the LR-WPAN

operate in either of two topologies the star topology or the
peer-to-peer topology. Both are shown in Figure 2.

Depending

may

Star Topo 001

Peer-to-Peer Topology

beacons

to

synchronize

with the

coordinator.

This

synchromization is important for data polling, energy saxing,

and detection of orphanings.

Supporting personal area network (A)
associationand
disassociation.
self
To
snpport
configuration,802.15.4 embeds association anid disassociation
functions in its MAC snblayer. This not only eiables a star to be
setnp automatically, bnt also allows for the creation of a
self-configuring peer-to-peer network.
Employing the carrier sense multiple access with
collision avoidance (CSVL4-CA) mechanisnm forchannel access:
Like most other protocols designed for wireless ietworks,
802. 15.4 uses CSMA-CA mechanlsm for chanmel access.
However, the new standard does not include the request-to-send
(RTS) and clear-to-send (CTS) mechanism, in consideration of
the low data rate used in LR-WPANs.
Handling and maintaining the guaranteed tinme slot
(GM mechanism: When working in a beacon enabled mode, a
coordinator can allocate portions of the active snperframe to a
device. These portions are called GTSs, and comprise the
contention free period (CFP) of the snperframe.
Providing a reliable link between two peer AL4C entities:
The MAC snblayer employs vanous mechani'sms to enhance the
reliability of the link bettween two peers, among them are the
frame ackniowledgment and retransmission, data enrification by
nsing a 16-bit CRC as well as CSMA-CA.

IV CHARACIERISTC OF 802.15.4 FOR: WSNs

PAN

Coordina tor

PAN

Coordirattrc
4-

Ful Fuiction Device

0 Reduced Function Device

Comr unication Flow

Figure 2 Star anld peer-to-peer topology examples

The PHY layer provides an interface between the MAC

snblayerand the physical radio chanel. It provides t-wo services
accessed through two service access points (SAPs). They are the
PHY data service a:nd the PHY mcmagement service.
B. TheA14Csubler
The MAC sublayer provides an interface between the service
spefcifc convergence sublayer (SSCS) and the PHY layer. Like
the PHY layer, the MAC sublayer also provides two services,
namely, the MAC data service and the MAC management
service. The MAC sublayer is responsible for the following
tasks:
Generatinig network beacons if ihe device is a
coordinator: A coordinator can determine Wxhether to work in a
beacon enabled mode, in which a snperframe structure is used.
The snperframe is bonnded by network beacons and divided
into aNnmSuperframeSlots eqnally sized slots. A coordinator
sends omit beacons penrodically to synchronize the attached
devices and for other purposes.
Snechronizing to the beacons: A device attached to a
coordinator operating in a beacon enabled mode can track the

940

A. LOWPOWER C0ASUMPTIOA
802.15.4 would not be exected to go too far without its most
acclaimed feature, low power consumption. For simple
battery-powered devices, the replacemcnt of batteries may cost
a user more tlh the devices themselves. It is not only very
cuinbersome bnt also practically impossible to replace the
batteries in some applications, snch as a pressure sensor
embedded into the tire of an antomobile. LoW power
consumption is one of the imost important research topics in
wireless networks, and mnch research has been done in this area
[8-11]. Several mechanisms are incorporated in 802.15.4 to
prolong the device battey lifetiine.
B. SECUREDATA TRANSFER
Secure data transfer is achieved by using proprietary
approaches in some prodncts. However, for a global standard
like 802.15.4, security is a big concem. For flexibility and in
order to snpport simple devices, 802.15.4 ofrs three levels of
secunity. If secunty is not an important factor for the application,
or thenlpper layer already provides sufficient secnrity protectioni,
a device can select none security mode for data transfcr. For the
second level of secunty, a device can use an access control list
(ACL) to prevent nnanthonzed devices from accessing its data.
There are no cryptographic actions involed at this level. The
third level of security employs a symmetric cipher of the
Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) in the data transfer.
C BEACOY'VIODEAND SUPE FRAME STRL TTRE
In beacon mode, the superframe may consist of both an
active and inactive period. The active portion of the superframe,

wlhich contains 16 equally spaced slots, is composed of three

pads: a beacon, a contention access penrod (CAP), and a
contention free penod (CEP). The beacon is transmitted without
the use of CSMA at the start of slot 0 and the CAP commences
inmnediately after the beacon. The coordinator only interacts
with nodes during the active period and may sleep during the
inactive period. There is a guaanteed timeslot (GTS) option in
802.15.4 to allow lower latency operation. There are a
maximum of 7 of the 16 available timeslots that can be allocated
to nodes, singly or combined.
D. SELE-COAFIGUPA4TIONAND ORPHANING
To support self-configuration, 802.15,4 embeds association
and disassociation finctions in its MAC sublayer. This not onily
enables a star to be set up automatically, but also allows for the
creation of a self-configuring peer-to-peer network. Various
configurations are also done during the association procedure,
such as selecting a channel and an identifier (ID) for the PAN,
detenmining whether to use beacon-enahled mode or
non-beacon-enabled mode, choosing the beacon order and
superframe order in beacon-enabled mode, assigning a 16-bit
short address for a device, and settinig the BatteryLifeExtension
option and many other options in the MAC layer PAN
information base (MPIB).
V APPLICATION SCENARIOS
802.15.4 is an cnabling standard in the sense that it

complements Wireless standards such as WiFi and UWB. It

distinguishes itself from other wireless standards by various

features, like low data rate, low power consumption, low cost,
self organzation Ad flexible topologies. It supports

applications for which other standards are inappropriate. It not

ony opens the door to an enormous number of new applications,
but also adds value to many existing applications in vehicles
and roads. With which vanous vehicles able to connect to
WVhicles-road Communication networks, ubiquitous networking
is closer than ever to us.
To elaborate on the potential extent to which 802.15.4 can
affect ITS, we present a few aplication scenarios which may
come true some day in future in the following paragraphs.
Firstly, in automobile industry, there is a trend of replacing
conventional hydrlic and mechanics systems with control by
wire systems. In fact control by wire systems have already been
uesed in aviation industry for decade of years. In future, contol
by xvire will also widely used in automobile industr, however,
the spread of the utilization of control by wire systems also meet
its problems. One senous problem to be solved is the
development of fault torlerance system. In avaition industry,
two or even thee sante control by wire systems are used
together in a plane or aircrft to solve teo fault torlerance
problem, xvhere cost is beyond consideration. In vehicles, the
utilization of two or three same control by wire systems will be
too expensive to be accepted. Thus Wireless commnunication is
finding its way into cars, applying WSNs based on
IEEE802.15.4 to work as backup systems to control by wire
systems will be a fairly good solution of fault torlerance

941

problem in control by wire systems in futurexvehicles. The

charactenstic of WSNs based on IEEE802.15.4, such as low
cost, low consumption, secure transfer and simplicity, is just
suitable for a backup system.
Sencondly, the wireless option introduces flexibility in
installation and an advanced altermative to wired connections. A
special challenge for automotix e applications is meeting the
harsh automotive enviromnent with a solutLion low enough in
cost to find volume applications. Some of the applications of
LR-WPANs can address in a vehicle are control and inonitoring
of noncritical sensors. An application example is a tire pressure
monitonrng system. The system consists of four pressure sensors,
one mounted on each tire, and a central station to receive the
collected data. Since the pressure sensors have to be mounted on
the tires, this application does not pennit the use of any
commuiication Wires or power cables. Tlherefore, sensors have
to be battery-powered. Since it is impractical to replace the
sensors or their batteries between tire changes, it is required that
the sensor batteries last at least three, preferably up to five,
years. Th:is puts significant constraints on the power
consumption of the electronic components and requires power
management capabilities. The data that needs to be
commuiicated is in most cases, ony a few bits in size and
indicates the measured tire pressure. This information is
transmitted about every 1-10 nnn unider non-alarm conditions.
Unless there is a fast loss of pressure, the message latency is inot
of significant concern. In case of sudden pressure loss, the
central control unit should be notified immediately, in wh'ich
case power consumption is not of concer since most likely the
tire has to be replaced. Extreme automotive enviromrental
conditions and the metallic structure hinder RF propagation. In
addition, the shape of the rim has a significant impact on the
radiation pattern from the wireless sensor. To overcome this
issue, repeater nodes, which will not add significant cost to the
system, can be added to the network to increase

communications reliability.

Then in the vehicles-road commumncation systems, some

day in futur with the large inumber of smart signposts or other
simle WSNs devices distributed along the streets, roads, and
otheUr places, you ino longer worry about getting lost. The
devices installed in your car will tell you where you are and
which way to go. You may get similar services from a global
positioning system (GPS), but the new distnbuted WSNs
system will be able to give you more accurate and specific
inforlation, and you can continue to use it even if you are
within a building or a tunnel GPS cannot cover, where WSNs
locatioin system will work instead. In fact, you can get much
more useful infofrtionl frm tlh new system, such as the speed
lilt, whether the street Ahead is one or two-way, and even the
traffic status or accident information of each street ahecad. Using
such a system, it is also possible to track public transportation.
If you have ever waited for tens of mites at a buis station or
train station in chiilly wind or uinder hot sunlight, you can
appreciate being able to catch the next bus or train just in time.
Many other functions can be exploRed from such a system. like
Adjusting traffic lights dynamically According to different traffic
loads on different streets, and tracking speeding cars or stolen

cars. Some main preponderances in implementing such WSNs

systems in ITS are low cost, low powcr consumption, and high

security.

VI CONCLUSION

and Metropolitan Area Networks - Specific Requirements - Part 15.4:

WNireless Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY)
Specifications for Low Rate Wireless Personal Area Networks
(LR-WPANs)",
New York:
IEEE Press.
October
2003.

IEEE 802.15.4 is a new standard designed to address the

needs of a variety of vehicular, residential, commercial and
industrial aplications by enabling pervasive wireless sensor
networks. The standard is characterized by maintaining a high
level of simplicity, allowing low cost and low power
consumption implementations. The high level charactenrstics of
IEEE 802.15.4 makes it a candidate technology to ITS by
enabling the use of low-cost wireless sensor networks with the
goal of enhancing the reliability of future wire control systems
in vehicles and the localization a:nd navigation of vehicles-road
communication systems.
In addition, other technologies such as two or three same
wire control systems used together to solve reliabilit issues
suffer for high cost that limits its wide spread deployinent. GPS
localization a:nd navigation systems have blind area that will
need the assistant of WSNs. Low-cost wireless sensor networks
solution enabled with IEEE 802.15.4 offers the capabilities
required for ITS in vehlicles and vehicles-road communication
systems, but network architecture issues needs to be addressed
in the upper layers of the protocol stack, particulaly, in the
adhoec self-configunng network layer, security and power
consumption control of velhicles-road communication systems.
Further efforts are still nieeded in this area in order to deliver a
complete solution for WSNs' application in ITS.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work is supported in part by the HUAWEI Foundation

(ID .YJCB20050 11WL).

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