ZIGBEE Technology

Zig-bee

Zig-bee is a specification for a suite of high level communication protocols using small, low-power digital radios based on the IEEE 802.15.4,2006 standard for wireless personal area networks (WPANs), such as wireless headphones connecting with cell phones via short-range radio. The technology defined by the Zig-bee specification is intended to be simpler and less expensive than other WPANs, such as Bluetooth. Zig-bee is targeted at radio-frequency (RF) applications that require a low data rate, long battery life, and secure networking. Zig-bee is a low data rate, two-way standard for home automation and data networks. The standard specification for up to 254 nodes including one master, managed from a single remote control. Real usage examples of Zig-bee includes home automation tasks such as turning lights on, setting the home security system, or starting the VCR. With Zig-bee all these tasks can be done from anywhere in the home at the touch of a button. Zig-bee also allows for dial-in access via the Internet for automation control. Zig-bee protocol is optimized for very long battery life measured in months to years from inexpensive, off-the-shelf non-rechargeable batteries, and can control lighting, air conditioning and heating, smoke and fire alarms, and other security devices. The standard supports 2.4 GHz (worldwide), 868 MHz (Europe) and 915 MHz (Americas) unlicensed radio bands with range up to 100 meters.

IEEE 802.15.4
IEEE 802.15.4 is a standard which specifies the physical layer and medium access control for lowrate wireless personal area networks (LR-WPAN's).This standard was chartered to investigate a low data rate solution with multi-month to multi-year battery life and very low complexity. It is

operating in an unlicensed, international frequency band. Potential applications are sensors, interactive toys, smart badges, remote controls, and home automation. 802.15.4 Is part of the 802.15 wireless personal-area network efforts at the IEEE? It is a simple packet-based radio protocol aimed at very low-cost, battery-operated widgets and sensors (whose batteries last years, not hours) that can intercommunicate and send low-bandwidth data to a centralized device. As of 2007, the current version of the standard is the 2006 revision. It is maintained by the IEEE 802.15 working group. It is the basis for the Zig-bee specification, which further attempts to offer a complete networking solution by developing the upper layers which are not covered by the standard.

802.15.4 Protocol
Data rates of 250 kbps with 10-100 meter range. Two addressing modes; 16-bit short and 64-bit IEEE addressing. CSMA-CA channel access. Power management to ensure low power consumption. 16 channels in the 2.4GHz ISM band Low duty cycle - Provides long battery life Low latency Support for multiple network topologies: Static, dynamic, star and mesh Up to 65,000 nodes on a network Comparison with other technologies Zig-Bee enables broad-based deployment of wireless networks with low-cost, low-power solutions. It provides the ability to run for years on inexpensive batteries for a host of monitoring applications: Lighting controls, AMR (Automatic Meter Reading), smoke and CO detectors, wireless telemetry, HVAC control, heating control, home security, Environmental controls and shade controls, etc. Zigbee Technology: Wireless Control that Simply Works Why is Zigbee needed? There are a multitude of standards that address mid to high data rates for voice, PC LANs, video, etc. However, up till now there hasnt been a wireless network standard that meets the unique needs of sensors and control devices. Sensors and controls dont need high bandwidth but they

do need low latency and very low energy consumption for long battery lives and for large device arrays. There are a multitude of proprietary wireless systems manufactured today to solve a multitude of problems that also dont require high data rates but do require low cost and very low current drain. These proprietary systems were designed because there were no standards that met their requirements. These legacy systems are creating significant interoperability problems with each other and with newer technologies.

Zigbee/IEEE 802.15.4 - General Characteristics

Dual PHY (2.4GHz and 868/915 MHz) Data rates of 250 kbps (@2.4 GHz), 40 kbps (@ 915 MHz), and 20 kbps (@868 MHz) Optimized for low duty-cycle applications (<0.1%) CSMA-CA channel access Yields high throughput and low latency for low duty cycle devices like sensors and controls Low power (battery life multi-month to years) Multiple topologies: star, peer-to-peer, mesh Addressing space of up to: 18,450,000,000,000,000,000 devices (64 bit IEEE address) 65,535 network nodes. Optional guaranteed time slot for applications requiring low latency Fully hand-shaked protocol for transfer reliability Range: 50m typical (5-500m based on environment)

ZIGBEE NETWORK TOPOLOGY:

Three devices in network 1. zigbee PAN coordinator (MASTER) 2. zigbee router (full function device) 3. zigbee end device(reduced function device)

ZIGBEE PROTOCOL STACK

ZigBee Stack System

PHYSICAL LAYER
The physical layer was designed to accommodate the need for a low cost yet allowing for high levels of integration. The use of direct sequence allows the analog circuitry to be very simple and The PHY provides two services: the PHY data service and PHY management service interfacing to the physical layer management entity (PLME). The PHY data service enables the transmission and reception of PHY protocol data units (PPDU) across the physical radio channel.

The features of the PHY are activation and deactivation of the radio transceiver, energy detection(ED), link quality indication (LQI), channel selection, clear channel assessment (CCA) and transmitting as well as receiving packets across the physical medium. The standard offers two PHY options based on the frequency band. Both are based on direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS). The data rate is 250kbps at 2.4GHz, 40kbps at 915MHz and 20kbps at 868MHz. The higher data rate at 2.4GHz is attributed to a higher-order modulation scheme. Lower frequency provide longer range due to lower propagation losses. Low rate can be translated into better sensitivity and larger coverage area. Higher rate means higher throughput, Lower latency or lower duty cycle. There is a single channel between 868 and 868.6MHz, 10 channels between 902.0 and 928.0MHz, and 16 channels between 2.4 and 2.4835GHz.

MAC LAYER
The media access control (MAC) layer was designed to allow multiple topologies without complexity. The power management operation doesnt require multiple modes of operation. The MAC allows a reduced functionality device (RFD) that neednt have flash nor large amounts of ROM or RAM. The MAC was designed to handle large numbers of devices without requiring them to be parked.

MAC Primitives: MAC Data Service

MCPS-DATA exchange data packets between MAC and PHY MCPS-PURGE purge an MSDU from the transaction queue

MAC Management Service

MLME-ASSOCIATE/DISASSOCIATE network association MLME-SYNC / SYNC-LOSS - device synchronization MLME-SCAN - scan radio channels MLME- COMM-STATUS communication status MLME-GET / -SET retrieve/set MAC PIB parameters MLME-START / BEACON-NOTIFY beacon management MLME-POLL - beaconless synchronization

MLME-GTS - GTS management MLME-RESET request for MLME to perform reset MLME-ORPHAN - orphan device management MLME-RX-ENABLE - enabling/disabling of radio system

BEACON ENABLED NETWORK

Network Layer
The responsibilities of the Zigbee NWK layer include: Starting a network: The ability to successfully establish a new network. Joining and leaving a network: The ability to gain membership (join) or relinquish membership (leave) a network. Configuring a new device: The ability to sufficiently configure the stack for operation as required. Addressing: The ability of a Zigbee coordinator to assign addresses to devices joining the network. Synchronization within a network: The ability for a device to achieve synchronization with another device either through tracking beacons or by polling. Security: applying security to outgoing frames and removing security to terminating frames

Routing: routing frames to their intended destinations.

Network Routing Overview

Perhaps the most straightforward way to think of the Zigbee routing algorithm is as a hierarchical routing strategy with table-driven optimizations applied where possible. NWK uses an algorithm that allows stack implementers and application developers to balance unit cost, battery drain, and complexity in producing Zigbee solutions to meet the specific costperformance profile of their application. Started with the well-studied public-domain algorithm AODV and Motorolas Cluster-Tree algorithm and folding in ideas from Ember Corporations GRAd.

Network Summary
The network layer builds upon the IEEE 802.15.4 MACs features to allow extensibility of coverage. Additional clusters can be added; networks can be consolidated or split up.

Application layer
The Zigbee application layer consists of the APS sub-layer, the ZDO and the manufacturerdefined application objects. The responsibilities of the APS sub-layer include maintaining tables for binding, which is the ability to match two devices together based on their services and their needs, and forwarding messages between bound devices. Another responsibility of the APS sublayer is discovery, which is the ability to determine which other devices are operating in the personal operating space of a device. The responsibilities of the ZDO include defining the role of the device within the network (e.g., Zigbee coordinator or end device), initiating and/or responding to binding requests and establishing a secure relationship between network devices. The manufacturer-defined application objects implement the actual applications according to the Zigbee-defined application descriptions

Zigbee Device Object

Defines the role of the device within the network (e.g., Zigbee coordinator or end device) Initiates and/or responds to binding requests Establishes a secure relationship between network devices selecting one of ZigBees security methods such as public key, symmetric key, etc.

Application Support Layer:

This layer provides the following services: Discovery: The ability to determine which other devices are operating in the personal operating space of a device. Binding: The ability to match two or more devices together based on their services and their needs and forwarding messages between bound devices

APPLICATIONS OF ZIGBEE TECHNOLOGY

Typical application areas include

Home Entertainment and Control Smart lighting, advanced temperature control, safety and security, movies and music

Home Awareness Water sensors, power sensors, energy monitoring, smoke and fire detectors, smart appliances and access sensors Mobile Services m-payment, m-monitoring and control, m-security and access control, m-healthcare and tele-assist Commercial Building Energy monitoring, HVAC, lighting, access control Industrial Plant Process control, asset management, environmental management, energy management, industrial device control, machine-to-machine (M2M) communication

Zigbee vs. Bluetooth

Zigbee looks rather like Bluetooth but is simpler, has a lower data rate and spends most of its time snoozing. This characteristic means that a node on a Zigbee network should be able to run for six months to two years on just two AA batteries. The operational range of Zigbee is 10-75m compared to 10m for Bluetooth (without a power amplifier). ZigBee sits below Bluetooth in terms of data rate. The data rate of Zigbee is 250kbps at 2.4GHz, 40kbps at 915MHz and 20kbps at 868MHz whereas that of Bluetooth is 1Mbps. ZigBee uses a basic master-slave configuration suited to static star networks of many infrequently used devices that talk via small data packets. It allows up to 254 nodes. Bluetooths protocol is more complex since it is geared towards handling voice, images and file transfers in ad hoc networks. Bluetooth devices can support scatter nets of multiple smaller nonsynchronized networks (piconets). It only allows up to 8 slave nodes in a basic master-slave piconet set-up. When ZigBee node is powered down, it can wake up and get a packet in around 15 msec whereas Bluetooth device would take around 3sec to wake up and respond.

ZIGBEE MODULE: Comparison with other technologies

ZigBee 802.15.4 1 100* 100 1,000 > 64,000 Monitoring & Control 4 32 20 250 Wi-Fi 802.11b 1 100 0.5 5.0 32 Web, Email, Video 1,000 11,000 Bluetooth 802.15.1 1 10 1-7 7 Cable Replacement 250 720

Standard Transmission Range (meters) Battery Life (days) Network Size (# of nodes) Application Stack Size (KB) Throughput kb/s)

Zigbee-compliant products operate in unlicensed bands worldwide, including 2.4GHz (global), 902 to 928MHz (Americas), and 868MHz (Europe). Raw data throughput rates of 250Kbps can be achieved at 2.4GHz (16 channels), 40Kbps at 915MHz (10 channels), and 20Kbps at 868MHz (1

channel). The transmission distance is expected to range from 10 to 100m, depending on power output and environmental characteristics. Like Wi-Fi, Zigbee uses direct-sequence spread spectrum in the 2.4GHz band, with offset-quadrature phase-shift keying modulation. Channel width is 2MHz with 5MHz channel spacing. The 868 and 900MHz bands also use direct-sequence spread spectrum but with binary-phase-shift keying modulation.

ZIGBEE MODULE SPECIFICATION:

Performance: XBee

Power output:: 1mW (+0 dBm) North American & International version Indoor/Urban range: Up to 100 ft (30 m) Outdoor/RF line-of-sight range: Up to 300 ft (90 m) RF data rate: 250 Kbps Interface data rate: Up to 115.2 Kbps Operating frequency: 2.4 GHz Receiver sensitivity: -92 dBm Power output: 63 mW (+18 dBm) North American version 10 mW (+10 dBm) International version Indoor/Urban range: Up to 300 ft (90 m) Outdoor/RF line-of-sight range: Up to 1 mile (1.6 km) RF LOS RF data rate: 250 Kbps Interface data rate: Up to 115.2 Kbps Operating frequency: 2.4 GHz Receiver sensitivity: -100 dBm (all variants) Spread Spectrum type: DSSS (Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum) Networking topology: Point-to-point, point-to-multipoint, & peer-to-peer Error handling: Retries & acknowledgements Filtration options: PAN ID, Channel, and 64-bit addresses Channel capacity: XBee: 16 Channels XBee-PRO: 12 Channels Addressing: 65,000 network addresses available for each channel

Performance: XBee-PRO

2 3 4 5 6 7

Networking

2 Power

Supply voltage: XBee: 2.8 - 3.4 VDC XBee-PRO: 2.8 - 3.4 VDC XBee Footprint Recommendation: 3.0 - 3.4 VDC Transmit current: XBee: 45 mA (@ 3.3 V) boost mode 35 mA (@ 3.3 V) normal mode XBee-PRO: 215 mA (@ 3.3 V) Receive current: XBee: 50 mA (@ 3.3 V) XBee-PRO: 55 mA (@ 3.3 V) Power-down sleep current: XBee: <10 A at 25 C XBee-PRO: <10 A at 25 C Frequency band: 2.4000 - 2.4835 GHz Interface options: 3V CMOS UART Size:

General

Physical Properties

XBee: 0.960 in x 1.087 in (2.438 cm x 2.761 cm) XBee-PRO: 0.960 in x 1.297 in (2.438 cm x 3.294 cm) 2 Weight: 0.10 oz (3g) 3 Antenna options: U.FL, Reverse Polarity SMA (RPSMA), chip antenna or wired whip antenna 4 Operating temperature: -40 C to 85 C (industrial)