IEEE 802.15

IEEE 802.15 is a working group of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) IEEE 802 standards committee which specifies wireless personal area network (WPAN) standards. There are 10 major areas of development, not all of which are active. The number of Task Groups in IEEE 802.15 varies based on the number of active projects. The current list of active projects can be found on the IEEE 802.15 web site.

Task group one is based on Bluetooth technology. It defines physical layer (PHY) and Media Access Control (MAC) specification for wireless connectivity with fixed, portable and moving devices within or entering personal operating space. Standards were issued in 2002 and 2005.

Task group two addresses the coexistence of wireless personal area networks (WPAN) with other wireless devices operating in unlicensed frequency bands such as wireless local area networks (WLAN). The IEEE 802.15.2-2003 standard was published in 2003 and task group two went into "hibernation".

IEEE 802.15.3-2003 is a MAC and PHY standard for high-rate (11 to 55 Mbit/s) WPANs. The standard can be downloaded via the IEEE Get program, which is funded by IEEE 802 volunteers.

IEEE 802.15.3a was an attempt to provide a higher speed Ultra wideband PHY enhancement amendment to IEEE 802.15.3 for applications which involve imaging and multimedia. The members of the task group were not able to come to an agreement choosing between two technology proposals, Multi-band Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (MB-OFDM) and Direct Sequence UWB (DS-UWB), backed by two different industry alliances and was withdrawn in January 2006. Documents related to the development of IEEE 802.15.3a are archived on the IEEE document server.

IEEE 802.15.3b-2005 amendment was released on May 5, 2006. It enhanced 802.15.3 to improve implementation and interoperability of the MAC. This amendment include many optimizations, corrected errors, clarified ambiguities, and added editorial clarifications while preserving backward compatibility. Among other changes, the amendment defined the following new features:

IEEE 802.15.3c-2009 was published on September 11, 2009. The task group TG3c developed a millimeter-wave-based alternative physical layer (PHY) for the existing 802.15.3 Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) Standard 802.15.3-2003. The IEEE 802.15.3 Task Group 3c (TG3c) was formed in March 2005. This mmWave WPAN is defined to operate in the 57–66 GHz range. Depending on the geographical region, anywhere from 2 to 9 GHz of bandwidth is available (for example, 57–64 GHz is available as unlicensed band defined by FCC 47 CFR 15.255 in North America). The millimeter-wave WPAN allows very high data rate, short range (10 m) for applications including high speed internet access, streaming content download (video on demand, HDTV, home theater, etc.), real time streaming and wireless data bus for cable replacement. A total of three PHY modes were defined in the standard:

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