IEEE802.15.4protocolisproposedtomeetthelowlatencyandenergyconsumptionneedsinlow-ratewirelessapplications,however,fewanalyticalmodelsaretractableenoughforcomprehensiveevaluationoftheprotocol.ToevaluatetheIEEE802.15.4slottedCSMA/CAchannelaccessmechanisminthispaper,weproposeapracticalandaccuratediscreteMarkovchainmodel,whichcandynamicallyrepresentdifferentnetworkloads.Bycomputingthesteady-statedistributionprobabilityoftheMarkovchain,weobtainanevaluationformulaforthroughput,energyconsumption,andaccesslatency.Thenwefurtheranalyzetheparametersthatinfluenceperformanceincludingpacketarrivalrate,initialbackoffexponentandmaximumbackoffnumber.Finally,NS2simulatorhasbeenusedtoevaluatetheperformanceofthe802.15.4CSMA/CAmechanismunderdifferentscenariosandtovalidatetheaccuracyoftheproposedmodel.
