Kanchan Kaushal et al, / (IJCSIT) International Journal of Computer Science and Information Technologies, Vol.

5 (6) , 2014, 7752-7755

ZigBee based Wireless Sensor Networks

Kanchan Kaushal#1, Taranvir Kaur*2, Jaspinder Kaur#3
#
Computer science Department, CTIEMT
Shahpur, Jalandhar, India
*
CTIEMT
Shahpur, Jalandhar, India

Abstract— In recent years, Wireless sensor networks have the distance of 10 meters which is very short distance. One
achieved an attention on a world level. These consist of small of the short range technologies is Bluetooth.
sensors with limited power and limited resources. Wireless There are four target groups within the 802.15-working
sensor standards developed with the special requirement for group. Target group number one (802.15.1) standard
consuming low power. Some of these standards are defines the WPAN based on the Physical (PHY) and
WirelessHART, IETF 6LoWPAN, ISA100.11, IEEE 802.15.3, Medium Access Control (MAC) level of Bluetooth version
Wibree, IEEE 802.15.4 and ZigBee. IEEE 802.15.4 has been 1.1. Target group number two (802.15.2) develops a model
developed to focus on low cost of deployment, low complexity
and low power consumption. IEEE devices are designed to
for coexistence of WLAN (801.11) and WPAN (802.15).
support the physical and data link layer protocols and ZigBee The purpose of the target group three (802.15.3) is to
defines the higher layer communication protocols built on develop standards for a data flow in WPAN (20Mbps and
IEEE 802.15.4 standards. This paper provides a review on higher). The target group four (802.15.4) is responsible for
ZigBee technology. Firstly it gives an introduction to the developing standards of PHY and MAC level for a small
ZigBee technology then the characteristics of ZigBee. After flow of data, very complex solutions that will extend
that there is an introduction to ZigBee alliance. Then are the battery lifetime to years. This new standard 802.15.4 is also
access methods, devices and topologies supported by ZigBee. called ZigBee. The target group five is for mesh networking.
The most important part of this paper consists of the protocol IEEE 802.15.4 is the proposed standard for low rate
architecture of ZigBee and in the last section there is various
application of ZigBee technology.
wireless personal area network (LR-WPAN). IEEE
802.15.4 focuses on low cost of deployment, low
complexity and low power consumption. IEEE devices are
Keywords—Wireless sensor networks, IEEE 802.15.4, ZigBee designed to support the physical and data link layer
Technology. protocols and ZigBee defines the higher layer
communication protocols built on IEEE 802.15.4 standards.
I. INTRODUCTION ZigBee specification has network layer and the application
In March 1999, IEEE establishes the 802.15 working layer and some where it has the security services too. It is
group as part of the IEEE Computer Society’s 802 Local different from other approaches, like Wi-Fi that offers more
and Metropolitan Area Network Standards Committee. bandwidth and consumes more power. The prominence is
802.15 working group was established with a specific goal on low cost communication between the nearby devices
of developing standards for short wireless networks, known having no infrastructure, aims to utilize this low power
as Wireless Personal Area Network-WPAN. consumption.

II. ZIGBEE TECHNOLOGY

There are various wireless control and monitoring
applications in home environments and industries which
needs lower data rates, longer battery life and lower
complexity than the existing standards. For these type of
wireless applications, a new standard has been developed
by IEEE which is called IEEE 802.15.4. This new standard
is also named as ZigBee. Moreover, to fulfil the demand of
consuming low power and low speed in wireless
communication devices, a new wireless technology ZigBee
comes as per the requirement of time.
ZigBee is named for erratic zigzagging patterns of bees
between flowers which symbolizes communication between
nodes in a mesh network. Network components of ZigBee
are analogous to queen bee, drones and worker bees. This
Fig. 1 Standards of Wireless Sensor Networks communication dance (The ZigBee Principle) is what
A WPAN is a wireless personal area network for the engineers are trying to emulate with this protocol a bunch
interconnection of devices around a single person's of separate and simple organisms that join together to tackle
workspace and connections among devices are wireless. complex tasks. [8]
WPAN uses the technology that allows communication in

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III. CHARACTERISTICS OF ZIGBEE

ZigBee is a low cost, low complexity and low power
technology that exhibits the following characteristics which
makes it more beneficial to use in the industry applications.
Characteristics of ZigBee are given as:
 ZigBee is created by ZigBee alliance
 ZigBee offers full Wireless mesh networking
 ZigBee supports approximately 65,000 devices on
one network
 Designed to connect the very large range of
devices in an industry into a single network.
 ZigBee adds network layer, security layers and an
application framework to enhance the IEEE
802.15.4 standard.
 ZigBee operates globally in 2.4 GHz band of
frequency as per IEEE 802.15.4.
 It has regional operation in 915MHz (Americans) Beacon Enabled Non Beacon Enabled
& 868 MHz (Europe) bands. Fig. 2 ZigBee Access Methods
 ZigBee absorbs low power for all classes of
devices. VI. ZIGBEE DEVICES
 ZigBee has various transmission options like ZigBee devices are the combination of application like
broadcast. light sensors for lightening control. There are three types of
 It has security key generation mechanism and it ZigBee devices. ZigBee Coordinator which is responsible
uses the AES-128 security scheme. for intelligent network, selecting suitable channel to create a
 It supports alliance standards like public network and adding child nodes to the network. ZigBee
application profiles or manufacturer application routers can be sensor devices and is routing capable device.
profiles. ZigBee end devices have no routing capability. ZigBee
devices increase battery life up to years using primary cells,
IV. ZIGBEE ALLIANCE which have low cost, without any chargers.
ZigBee is organized under the control of the organization
called ZigBee Alliance. ZigBee alliance is an organization
of companies working together to define an open global
standard for making low power wireless networks.[8] The
intentional outcome of ZigBee alliance is to make a
description that defines how to build altered network Fig 3 ZigBee Devices
topologies with features of data security and interpretable
application profiles. This organization has more than 150 VII. TOPOLOGIES SUPPORTED BY ZIGBEE
members out of which seven are the promoter. A big
ZigBee supports three types of network topologies that
challenge for the ZigBee alliance is to make the
are star topology, tree topology and mesh topologies. Star
interoperability to work among different products. [8] For
topology is where a coordinator is surrounded by a group of
solving this problem, ZigBee Alliance has defined profiles
end devices or routers. This topology is simple but it has
which depends on the category of the product to which it
some disadvantages. In the moment when the coordinator
belongs to. For e.g. there is a profile called the home
stop functioning the entire network is functionless because
lightning which defines how altered brands of home
all traffic must travel through the centre of the star. For the
lightning-products should communicate to each other.
same reason the coordinator will easily be bottleneck to
V. ZIGBEE ACCESS METHODS traffic. Then is the Tree topology, a coordinator initializes
the network and is the root of the tree. The coordinator can
ZigBee provides two types of access methods that are: have routers or end devices connected to it and for every
 Beacon Enabled router; there is a possibility for connection of more child
 Non Beacon Enabled nodes to each router. Because the message can take only
In Non Beacon Enabled network, any node in the network one path so this type of topology is not the most reliable
may send the data whenever channel is free. But the method topology. Mesh topology is the most flexible topology
is different for the Beacon Enabled network. In beacon because message can take multiple paths from source to
enabled, nodes can only send or recieve in preagreed time destination. If a particular router fails the ZigBee’s self
slots. Here PAN coordinator assigns the guaranteed time healing mechanism will allow the network to search for an
slots (GTS) to every device; so devices can transmit the alternative path for the message to be passed. Following are
data in their own time slot. Both, beacon enabled and non the topologies supported by ZigBee; Star topology, Tree
beacon enabled, access methods are shown in figure 2. topology and Mesh topology.

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payload. An acknowledgment frame is used to confirm

successful reception of frame. It sends feedback from
receiver to the sender and confirms that the packet has
received without any error. A MAC command frame is
used to handle all MAC peer operation control transfers.
MAC command frame provides a method for remote
control and layout of client nodes. MAC layer provides
collision avoidance mechanism and is responsible for
validating frames, frame delivery, network interface and
secure services.

Star Topology Tree Topology

Mesh Topology

Fig 4: Topologies supported by ZigBee and ZigBee devices

VIII. PROTOCOL ARCHITECTURE OF ZIGBEE

The figure 5 shows the protocol architecture of ZigBee.
The IEEE standard defines the characteristics of PHY and
MAC layers. ZigBee builds upon IEEE 802.15.4 standard
defines the network layer specifications and provides a
framework for application programming at the application
layer.
ZigBee follows the standard OSI (Open system Fig 5: Protocol architecture of ZigBee
Interconnection) reference model. Protocol stack of ZigBee
has a layered structure. The first two layers, PHY (physical) C. Network Layer: Network layer comes under the ZigBee
and MAC (media access) are defined in the standard IEEE specification. Network layer is an interface between the
802.15.4 as shown in the figure. The layers above to the application layer and the MAC Layer. Functions of this
physical and MAC are defined by the organization called Layer are formation of network and routing. This layer
ZigBee Alliance. helps the low power devices to increase their battery life.
A. Physical Layer: The physical layer of the standard The Network layer connects or disconnects devices by
IEEE802.15.4 is the nearest to the hardware, that using the network coordinator that implements security
controls and communicates directly with the radio and forward frames to their destination. Network layer
transceiver. It controls all tasks like access to the of the coordinator starts a new network and assigns an
ZigBee hardware, initializing the hardware, selection of address to newly connected devices. Multiple network
channel, energy detection measurement, link quality topologies are supported by the network layer like star,
estimation and clear channel assessment to assist the tree, and mesh as shown in figure.
channel selection. Next in the upward direction there is D. Application Layer: The application Layer is the upper
the Media access control that is MAC layer. most layer of the protocol stack and it holds the
B. Medium Access Control: MAC layer is an interface application objects. ZigBee specification divides the
between the physical and the network layer. The APL layer into three discrete sub layers:
function of MAC layer is to generate beacons and 
Application support sub layer
synchronize the devices to the beacon signal, in a 
ZigBee device objects, and
network which is beacon enabled. It also performs the 
Application framework which contains
connect and disconnect function. The IEEE 802.15.4 manufacturer defined objects.
MAC has defined four types of frame structures: A 1) The application objects (APO): Application objects are
beacon frame which is used by a coordinator to transfer
responsible to control and manage the layers in ZigBee
beacons. The beacon frame awakes the client devices,
which hear for their address and sleep again when they devices. It is a type of software that controls the
receive it. A data frame is used for all transmissions of hardware. Each application objects allots a specific end
data. The data frame provides up to 104 bytes of point number that other APOs may use an addition to

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 Kanchan Kaushal et al, / (IJCSIT) International Journal of Computer Science and Information Technologies, Vol. 5 (6) , 2014, 7752-7755

the network device address for interaction. There could X. CONCLUSION

be approximately up to 240 application objects into one The IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee protocol stack gives a
ZigBee device. practical application solution for low data rate, low cost and
2) ZigBee Device Object: The key description of ZigBee low power dissipation characteristics of WSNs. This paper
is the ZigBee device object, that performs three main gives all over details of the ZigBee technology. ZigBee is a
technology designed by ZigBee alliance which offers
functions; security, service discovery & binding. The
various characteristics like low power consumption,
function of discovery is to find out nodes and ask about advanced security services, full mesh networking etc.
the MAC address of the coordinator or router by using ZigBee offers two types of access methods; beacon enabled
the unicast messages. The discovery also facilitates the and non beacon enabled and supports three types of ZigBee
procedure for finding some services through their devices. It supports three network topologies. Protocol
profile identifiers. The security services in the ZigBee stack of ZigBee is given in this paper with sufficient details.
device object are responsible to authenticate and derive ZigBee has its applications in various fields which require
low data rate and low power consumption. The prominence
the required keys for data encryption. The role of
of this technology is on low cost communication between
binding manager is to bind the nodes to recourses and the nearby devices having a little or no infrastructure, aims
applications also bind the devices to channels. to utilize this low power consumption.
3) Application support sub layer: The APS sub layer is an
interface between the Network layer and the APL ACKNOWLEDGMENT
layers. The APS sub layer processes incoming and The authors wish to thank the faculty from the computer
outgoing frames to securely receive/transmit the frames science department at CTIEMT, Jalandhar for their
continued support and feedback.
and establish or manage the cryptographic keys.
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