UWB-ND: Low-power Neighbor Discovery Protocol for Ultra-Wideband Radio Networks

Due to the frequent topology changes in most wireless networks, low-power Neighbor Discovery (ND) is essential for many Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) and Internet of Things (IoT) applications. In this work, we present UWB-ND, a low-power ND protocol for ultra-wideband (UWB) radio networks that are becoming increasingly popular in IoT applications. To conserve energy, these IoT applications typically rely on other low-power radio technology such as Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) for ND, requiring the integration of auxiliary radios in all nodes. Utilizing specific characteristics of UWB radios such as efficient Channel Activity Detection (CAD) and varying preamble modulation, UWB-ND introduces a low-power ND approach specific to UWB radios. Our evaluation shows that UWB-ND can reduce ND power consumption by 50%, compared to the state-of-the-art PI-based approach.