A Comparative Study of Wireless Protocols: Bluetooth, UWB, ZigBee, and Wi-Fi

Bluetooth (over IEEE 802.15.1), ultra-wideband (UWB, over IEEE 802.15.3), ZigBee (over IEEE 802.15.4), and Wi-Fi (over IEEE 802.11) are four protocol standards for short- range wireless communications with low power consumption. From an application point of view, bluetooth is intended for a cordless mouse, keyboard, and hands-free headset, UWB is oriented to high-bandwidth multimedia links, ZigBee is designed for reliable wirelessly networked monitoring and control networks, while Wi-Fi is directed at computer-to-computer connections as an extension or substitution of cabled networks. In this paper, we provide a study of these popular wireless communication standards, evaluating their main features and…