• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.31 no.5C
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• pp.519-533
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• 2006

The number of channels specified in IEEE 802.15.4 Low-Rate Wireless Personal Area Networks(LRWPANs) is too few to operate many applications of WPANs in the same area. To overcome this limit, we introduce Virtual Channel, a novel concept to increase the number of available channels when various WPAN applications coexist. Basically, a virtual channel is a newly-created channel via superframe scheduling within the inactive period of a logical channel preoccupied by other WPANs. To maximize the coexistence capability of WPANs using virtual channels, we propose Least Collision superframe scheduler(LC-scheduler), its less complex heuristics both for a given single channel, and Virtual Channel Selector(VCS) to efficiently manage multiple available logical channels. In addition, a simple but practical synchronization method is developed to compensate different time drifts among coexisting WPANs. The simulation results demonstrate that a remarkable improvement on the coexistence capability of the 802.15.4 can be achieved through the proposed schemes.