Performance Analysis and Optimization of MAC Frame Size in IEEE 802.15.7

Abstract

The IEEE 802.15.7 standard document for short-range wireless optical communication using visible light divides applications into three topologies: peer-to-peer, star, and broadcast. Among them, the star topology has the widest range of application and is the target in many researches. Unlike the peer-to-peer and broadcast, the star topology has to deal with the problem of contention. In the IEEE 802.15.7 standard, the contention problem is solved using random access mechanism, and the performance of the star topology VPAN system is greatly affected by the configuration of MAC sublayer, especially the superframe size. In this paper, we simulate a VPAN system using Matlab. Through the simulation, we analyze the impact of superframe size on the network performance in terms of network throughput and delay. Because there is a trade-off between throughput and delay, we define a new measurement for evaluating the overall system performance. Based on this measurement, we optimize the superframe size to get the optimal performance of VPAN system.