Zigbee, IEEE 802.15.

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Sensor Network Challenges

 Low computational power

 Less than 10 MIPS
 Low memory budget: 4-10 KB

 Limited energy budget

 AA batteries provide ~2850 mAh
 Lion and NiMH batteries provide 800-2500 mAh
 Solar cells: around 5 mA/cm2 in direct sunlight

 Communication?

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 Wireless Communication
 Wireless communication standards:
 IEEE 802.11 a/b/g
 Bluetooth
 GSM
 What makes them unattractive for WSN:
 Power hungry (need big batteries)
 Complexity (need lots of clock cycles and memory)
 New protocol for WSN:
 802.15.4 and Zigbee (ratified in Dec 14, 2004)

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 Technology Space
Complexity,
Power,
Cost
802.11a

802.11b 802.11g
11Mbps 54Mbps

Bluetooth
720 kbps
802.15.4
Zigbee
250 kbps
“Mica2”/
cc1000 38.4 kbps
Data rate

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 Wireless Standards
ZigBee™ Bluetooth™ GPRS/GSM
Wi-Fi™ 802.11b
802.15.4 802.15.1 1XRTT/CDMA
Monitoring &
Application Focus Control
Cable Replacement Web, Video, Email WAN, Voice/Data

System Resource 4KB-32KB 250KB+ 1MB+ 16MB+

Battery Life(days) 100-1000+ 1-7 .1-5 1-7
Nodes Per Network 255/65K+ 7 30 1,000
Bandwidth (kbps) 20-250 720 11,000+ 64-128
Range(meters) 1-75+ 1-10+ 1-100 1,000+
Reliable,
Cost,
Key Attributes Low Power, Speed, Flexibility Reach, Quality
Convenience
Cost Effective

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 Why NOT 802.11 ?
The Cost of Throughput

 High data rates

 up to 11Mbps for b and
 up to 54Mbps for g and a)
 Distance up to 300 feet, or more with special antennas
 High power consumption
 Sources about 1800mA when transceiver is operational.

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 IEEE 802.11b example

 Consider running a mote with 802.11b on two AA batteries.

 Consumes 1800mA when transmitting
 Assume NiMH battery capacity 2400mA/h
 Assume transmitting 1/3 of the time

 How long will the batteries last?

 Is the given information sufficient for the question asked?

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 How About Bluetooth ? ?
The Cost of Universalism

 Designed for communications

between portable and
peripheral devices

 720 kbps, 10m range

 One master and 7 slave devices in each “Piconet”
 Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA)
 Frequency hopping to avoid collisions between Piconets
 Hop between channels 1600 times a second
 79 channels (1MHz each) to avoid collisions

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 Bluetooth (2)

 Protocol tailored to many different data types: Audio,

Text, Raw data
 Makes the protocol rather complex to accommodate for all
data types
 Needs more memory and clock cycles than we are willing to
afford on the Motes

 Zigbee needs only about 10-50% of the software in

comparison with Bluetooth and WiFi

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15.4/ZigBee and Bluetooth

 Instantaneous Power Consumption

 15.4 Transceivers are “similar” to Bluetooth Transceivers
 802.15.4
 O-QPSK with shaping
 Max data rate 250kbps over the air
 2Mchips/s over the air Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (62.5ksps*32 spread)
 -92 dBm sensitivity nominal
 40ppm xtal
 Bluetooth
 FSK
 Max data rate 720kbps over the air
 1Msps over the air Frequency Hop Spread Spectrum (79 channels @ 1600 hps)
 -83 to -84 dBm sensitivity nominal
 20ppm xtal

 Instantaneous power consumption will be similar for the raw

transceivers without protocol
 Bluetooth’s FHSS makes it impractical to create extended networks
without large synchronization cost

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15.4 Protocol Built for the Mission
 15.4 Protocol was developed for very different reasons than Bluetooth
 802.15.4
 Very low duty cycle, very long primary battery life applications as well as mains-powered
 Static and dynamic mesh, cluster tree and star network structures with potentially a very large
number (>>65534) of client units, low latency available as required
 Ability to remain quiescent for long periods of time without communicating to the network
 Bluetooth
 Moderate duty cycle, secondary battery operation where battery lasts about the same as master
unit
 Wire replacement for consumer devices that need moderate data rates with very high QoS and
very low, guaranteed latency
 Quasi-static star network structure with up to 7 clients (and ability to participate in more than
one network simultaneously)
 Generally used in applications where either power is cycled (headsets, cellphones) or mains-
powered (printers, car kits)
 Protocol differences can lead to tremendous optimizations in power consumption

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802.15.4/ZigBee vs Bluetooth

At beacon interval ~60s,

15.4/ZigBee battery life
approx 416 days

802.15.4/ZigBee more At beacon interval ~1s,

battery-effective at all 15.4/ZigBee battery life 85
beacon intervals greater days
than 0.246s

Bluetooth 30 days
(park mode @ 1.28s)

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 What is Zigbee
 ZigBee is a published specification set of high level
communication protocols for:
 Low data rate, low power, low cost wireless systems
operating in unlicensed RF domain
 Formely known as
 PURLnet, RF-Lite, Firefly, and HomeRF Lite

 Based on IEEE 802.15.4

 O-QPSK with shaping
 Max data rate 250kbps over the air (up to 500m)
 2Mchips/s over the air Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (62.5ksps*32 spread)
 -92 dBm sensitivity nominal
 40ppm xtal

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How about Lora & LoraWan?
 LoRa ™ (Long Range) is a modulation technique based on the
Spread-Spectrum technique which is a variant of Chirp Spread
Spectrum (CSS) that maintains low power characteristics as the
same as FSK modulation but significantly increases
communication range significantly compared to others.
 5 Km urban area
 15 Km rural area
 Data rate: 0,3 ~ 50 Kbps (LoRa modulation)
 Bandwidth
 – 430MHz for Asia
 – 780MHz for China
 – 433MHz or 866MHz for Europe
 –14915MHz for USA
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 ZigBee Applications

 Wireless home security

 Remote thermostats for air conditioner
 Remote lighting, drape controller
 Call button for elderly and disabled
 Universal remote controller to TV and radio
 Wireless keyboard, mouse and game pads
 Wireless smoke, CO detectors
 Industrial and building automation and control (lighting, etc.)

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 Zigbee General

 Low power
 battery life multi-month to years
 Multiple topologies
 star, peer-to-peer, mesh
 Addressing space: 64 bits
 Question: how many nodes?
 Fully hand-shake protocol (reliability)
 Range: 50m typical
 5-500m based on environment

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 Zigbee Intended Traffic

 Periodic data
 Intermittent data
 Application defined rate (e.g., sensors)
 External stimulus defined rate (e.g., light switch)
 Low latency data

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ZigBee and OSI Model
OSI 7-Layer Model Technology Examples

Layer 7: Application SMTP, FTP, Telnet

Layer 6: Presentation ASCII, JPEG, BMP

ZigBee…

Layer 5: Session RPC

Layer 4: Transport TCP, UDP
Layer 3: Network IP

Layer 2: Data Link

Ethernet, ATM
802.15.4

• (MAC)
CSMA/CD (Carrier
Layer 1: Physical (PHY) Sensing Multiple Access
With Collision Detection)

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 Zigbee Protocol Stack

 ZigBee uses the IEEE 802.15.4 – Low Rate Wireless

Personal Area Network (WPAN) standard to describe
its lower protocol layers: PHY and MAC

***

Layer 2: Data Link

(MAC)

Layer 1: Physical (PHY)

Media
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 Zigbee/IEEE 802.15.4

 Dual PHY: 2.4GHz and 868/915 MHz

 Data rates:
 250 kbps @ 2.4GHz
 40 kbps @ 915MHz
 20 kbps @ 868MHz
 Q: Why would anyone want this?
 A: Better penetrates obstacles than @2.4GHz
 CSMA-CA channel access
 Yields high throughput and low latency for low duty cycle devices

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 ZigBee: PHY
 The radio uses Digital Spread Spectrum Signaling
(DSSS)
 Conventional DSSS for 868MHz and 915MHz bands
 Orthogonal Signaling (4 bits per symbol) for 2.4GHz band
 Number of channels
 16 channels in the 2.4GHz ISM band
 10 channels in the 915MHz
 one channel in the 868MHz

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 ZigBee: MAC
 Employs 64-bit IEEE & 16-bit short addresses
 Three device types specified
 Network Coordinator
 Full Function Device (FFD)
 Reduced Function Device (RFD)
 Simple frame structure
 Reliable delivery of data
 Association/disassociation
 AES-128 security
 CSMA-CA channel access
 Optional superframe structure with beacons
 Optional GTS mechanism

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 ZigBee as Mesh Networking

ZigBee Coordinator

ZigBee Router/FFD

ZigBee RFD
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 PHY – MAC Interaction Example

PHY MAC Next Layer…

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 PHY – MAC Interaction (2)

PHY MAC Next Layer…

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 ZigBee Upper Layers
 Messaging
 Configurations that can be used
 Security:
 Key setup and maintenance: Commercial, Residential
 Defines key types: Master, Link, Network
 CCM (unified, simple mode of operation)
 More: Key freshness checks, message integrity, authentication (network and
device level)
 Network layer (NWK) supports three topologies:
 Star
 Mesh
 Cluster-Tree ( = Star + Mesh)

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 How A ZigBee Network Forms
 Devices are pre-programmed for their network function
 Coordinator scans to find an unused channel to start a network
 Router scans to find an active channel to join, then permits other devices to
join
 End Device will always try to join an existing network

 Devices discover other devices in the network providing complementary

services
 Service Discovery can be initiated from any device within the network

 Devices can be bound to other devices offering complementary services

 Binding provides a command and control feature for specially identified sets
of devices

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 ZigBee Stack Architecture: Addressing

 Every device has a unique 64 bit MAC address

 Upon association, every device receives a unique 16 bit
network address
 Only the 16 bit network address is used to route packets
within the network
 Devices retain their 16 bit address if they disconnect from the
network, however, if they leave the network, the 16 bit address
is re-assigned

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 ZigBee Stack Architecture: Addressing (2)

 NWK broadcast implemented above the MAC:

 NWK address 0xFFFF is the broadcast address
 Special algorithm in NWK to propagate the message
 “Best Effort” or “Guaranteed Delivery” options
 Radius Limited Broadcast feature

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 ZigBee Routing
 Routing table entry:
 Destination Address (2 bytes)
 Route status (3 bits)
 Next Hop (2 bytes)

 Route request command frame:

 FrameID, Options, RequestID, Destination Address, Path cost

 Route reply command frame:

 FrameID, Options, Req.ID, Originator Addr, Responder Addr, Path cost

 A device wishing to discover or repair a route issues a route request command frame
which is broadcast throughout the network

 When the intended destination receives the route request command frame it responds
with at least one route reply command frame

 Potential routes are evaluated with respect to a routing cost metric at both source and
destination

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 ZigBee NWK Parameters
 nwkMaxDepth and nwkMaxChildren
 nwkMaxRouters
 Size of the routing table
 Size of neighbor table
 Size of route discovery table
 Number of reserved routing table entries
 How many packets to buffer pending route discovery
 How many packets to buffer on behalf of end devices
 Routing cost calculation
 nwkSymLink
 nwkUseTreeRouting

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 PHY Performance

802.15.4 has excellent

performance in low
SNR environments

Bluetooth

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Data Frame format

 One of two most basic and important structures in 15.4

 Provides up to 104 byte data payload capacity
 Data sequence numbering to ensure that packets are tracked
 Robust structure improves reception in difficult conditions
 Frame Check Sequence (FCS) validates error-free data

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Acknowledgement Frame Format

 The other most important structure for 15.4

 Provides active feedback from receiver to sender that packet was received
without error
 Short packet that takes advantage of standards-specified “quiet time”
immediately after data packet transmission

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MAC Command Frame format

 Mechanism for remote control/configuration of client nodes

 Allows a centralized network manager to configure individual clients
no matter how large the network

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Beacon Frame format

 Beacons add a new level of functionality to a network

 Client devices can wake up only when a beacon is to be broadcast, listen for their address, and if not
heard, return to sleep
 Beacons are important for mesh and cluster tree networks to keep all of the nodes synchronized
without requiring nodes to consume precious battery energy listening for long periods of time

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Home/Light Commercial Spaces

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Industrial/Commercial Spaces
Energy, diagnostics, e-Business
 Warehouses, Fleet management, Factory, Supermarkets, services
Office complexes
• Gateway or Field Service links to
 Gas/Water/Electric meter, HVAC sensors & equipment
 Smoke, CO, H2O detector – Monitored to suggest PM, product updates,
status changes
 Refrigeration case or appliance
• Nodes link to PC for database storage
 Equipment management services & Preventative – PC Modem calls retailer, Service Provider, or
maintenance Corp headquarters
 Security services – Corp headquarters remotely monitors assets,
billing, energy management
 Lighting control
 Assembly line and work flow, Inventory
 Materials processing systems (heat, gas flow, cooling, Field Service
chemical) or mobile
worker

Temp. Database
Sensor Gateway Security
Sensor
Back End
Mfg Flow
Telephone Server
Cable line
Materials HVAC
Corp
handling
Service Office Retailer
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Provider
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