DEVICE TYPES

There are three different types of ZigBee devices:

• ZigBee coordinator(ZC): The most capable device, the coordinator forms the root of
the network tree and might bridge to other networks. There is exactly one ZigBee
coordinator in each network since it is the device that started the network originally.
It is able to store information about the network, including acting as the Trust Centre
& repository for security keys.
• ZigBee Router (ZR): As well as running an application function a router can act as
an intermediate router, passing data from other devices.

ZigBee End Device (ZED): Contains just enough functionality to talk to the parent node
(either the coordinator or a router); it cannot relay data from other devices. This
relationship allows the node to be asleep a significant amount of the time thereby giving
long battery life. A ZED requires the least amount of memory, and therefore can be less
expensive to manufacture than a ZR or ZC.

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NODE TYPES
The standard defines two types of network node.

The first one is the full-function device (FFD). It can serve as the coordinator of a personal
area network just as it may function as a common node. It implements a general model of
communication which allows it to talk to any other device: it may also relay messages, in
which case it is dubbed a coordinator (PAN coordinator when it is in charge of the whole
network).

On the other hand there are reduced-function devices (RFD). These are meant to be
extremely simple devices with very modest resource and communication requirements; due
to this, they can only communicate with FFD's and can never act as coordinators.

TOPOLOGIES
Different types of topologies are peer-to-peer ,star etc.

Peer-to-peer (or point-to-point) networks can form arbitrary patterns of connections, and
their extension is only limited by the distance between each pair of nodes. They are meant to
serve as the basis for ad hoc networks capable of performing self-management and
organization. Since the standard does not define a network layer, routing is not directly
supported, but such an additional layer can add support for multihop communications.
Further topological restrictions may be added; the standard mentions the cluster tree as a
structure which exploits the fact that an RFD may only be associated with an FFD at a time
to form a network where RFD's are exclusively leaves of a tree, and most of the nodes are
FFD's. The structure can be extended as a generic mesh network whose nodes are cluster tree
networks with a local coordinator for each cluster, in addition to the global coordinator.

A more structured star pattern is also supported, where the coordinator of the network will
necessarily be the central node. Such a network can originate when an FFD decides to create
its own PAN and declare itself its coordinator, after choosing a unique PAN identifier. After
that, other devices can join the network, which is fully independent from all other star
networks.

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ETHERNET

Ethernet is the most widely-installed local area network ( LAN) technology. Specified in a
standard, IEEE 802.3. An Ethernet LAN typically uses coaxial cable or special grades of
twisted pair wires. Ethernet is also used in wireless LANs. The most commonly installed
Ethernet systems are called 10BASE-T and provide transmission speeds up to 10 Mbps.
Devices are connected to the cable and compete for access using a Carrier Sense Multiple
Access with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD ) protocol.

Fast Ethernet or 100BASE-T provides transmission speeds up to 100 megabits per second
and is typically used for LAN backbone systems, supporting workstations with 10BASE-T
cards. Gigabit Ethernet provides an even higher level of backbone support at 1000 megabits
per second (1 gigabit or 1 billion bits per second). 10-Gigabit Ethernet provides up to 10
billion bits per second.

The most widely used are 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, and 1000BASE-T (Gigabit Ethernet),
running at 10 Mbit/s, 100 Mbit/s, and 1000 Mbit/s (1 Gbit/s) respectively. These three

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standards all use the same connectors. Higher speed implementations nearly always support
the lower speeds as well, so that in most cases different generations of equipment can be
freely mixed. They use 8 position modular connectors, usually called RJ45 in the context of
Ethernet over twisted pair. The cables usually used are four-pair or above twisted pair cable.
Each of the three standards support both full-duplex and half-duplex communication.
According to the standards, they all operate over distances of 'up to 100 meters'.

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