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Enhanced association mechanism for IEEE 802.15.4 networks

The use of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is considerably increasing, mainly due to their inherent low cost and wide range of applications. The formation of a WSN is driven by a request-based procedure that associates sensor nodes to a PAN (Personal Area Network) coordinator. In the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, the communication exchanges between a node willing to join the network and the PAN coordinator follows a CSMA/CA protocol. In this paper, we propose a set of specific improvements for the enhancement of the nodes joining procedure. The goal is to reduce the time spent in the association process, minimizing the time spent to deploy the network. A simulation assessment of the proposed set of improvements was performed using the OMNeT++/Castalia simulator, comparing their usage with the default mechanism defined by the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. The achieved results demonstrate that an adequate definition of the parameters of the CSMA/CA protocol significantly reduces the duration of the association procedure.