Communication Technology in Mobile and Pervasive Computing - Mobile and Pervasive Computing in Construction - page 30

technologies (such as WIMAX etc.) exist, but those listed in the table are the most
widespread today. Each of these radio technologies is discussed in some detail. In
addition to these radio technologies, there is also telecom-based radio, including
GSM, GPRS, Edge, 3G and LTE. Currently, GSM, GPRS, Edge and 3G are used in
many M2Mapplications. Notably, a clear majority of this usage today is non-mobile.
Raw transceivers
Over the years a large number of transceivers have been developed for the 433, 868
and 915MHz frequency bands, each targeting different application demands. Their
properties vary with the chosen modulation technique, protocol, and operating
conditions.
These raw transmitters have long been used for serial point-to-point commu-
nication over a radio channel, using proprietary protocols. The use of proprietary
protocols is still the most difficult obstacle to the facile integration of mobile and
pervasive technology at all levels. To be truly useful in mobile and pervasive
computing applications, these transceivers must be able to integrate with open
protocols at the higher layers in the OSI stack (Figure 3.2.)
Bluetooth
One of the first widespread radio technologies was Bluetooth, which became
available 2000. The Bluetooth SIG member companies drive the development of
Bluetooth wireless technology, and implement and market the technology in their
products. The current specification, as of early 2012, is v4.0 (Bluetooth SIG, 2010);
there are two spec addendum dating from December 27, 2011. When targeting a
mobile phone as the access point to a network, Bluetooth has a clear advantage over
any other technology. Due to its frequency hopping technology, Bluetooth is very
robust and insensitive to radio disturbance.
Its primary drawback is its relatively high power consumption. Some interesting
work on low power Bluetooth has been carried out by Eliasson (Eliasson
et al ., 2008).
IEEE 802.14.1 (WPAN)
The main problem with the use of raw transceivers is interoperability, hence a
number of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) task groups have
been established to work in various areas of transceiver development. IEEE
802.15.1-2002 has derived a Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) standard
based on the Bluetooth v1.1 specifications. It includes a medium access control and
physical layer specification. An updated version, IEEE 802.15.1-2005 (IEEE, 2005),
has been published.
3.3.2 IEEE 802.15.4 (Low Rate WPAN)
IEEE 802.15.4-2003 (Low Rate WPAN) uses low data rates but results in long
battery lives (months or even years) and low complexity. The first edition of the