ZigBee and IEEE 802.15.

4:
A brief introduction

Geir E. Øien
NTNU
CROPS kick-off meeting
01.02.2006
 Acknowledgements
• Several slides taken or partly adopted from
the presentation ”Wireless Sensors and Control
Networks: Enabling New Opportunities” (June
2005) by Bob Heile, ZigBee Alliance
chairman/IEEE802.15 chair - cf.
http://www.zigbee.org for full presentation
(and others)
• Some of the information taken from two
NTNU student project reports by MScEE Erik
Undheim (reports available upon request),
2004 - 2005.
 The 802 Wireless Space
WWAN IEEE 802.22

IEEE 802.20
WMAN
Range

WiMax
IEEE 802.16
WLAN WiFi
ZigBee 802.11
802.15.3
802.15.4 Bluetooth
WPAN 802.15.3a
802.15.1
802.15.3c

0.01 0.1 1 10 100 1000

Data Rate (Mbps)
802.15.4 Application Space

¾Sensors & Controls:

ƒHome Automation
ƒIndustrial Automation
ƒ Remote Metering
ƒAutomotive Networks
ƒInteractive Toys
ƒActive RFID/ asset tracking
ƒMedical
 Sensor/Control Network
Requirements
• Large networks (large number of devices and large
coverage area) that can form autonomously and that
will operate very reliably for years without any
operator intervention
• Very long battery life (years off of a AA cell), very low
infrastructure cost (low device & setup costs) and very
low complexity and small size
• Device data rate and QoS needs are low
• Standardized protocols are necessary to allow
multiple vendors to interoperate
 Why ZigBee?

• Reliable and self healing

• Supports large number of nodes
• Easy to deploy
• Very long battery life
• Secure
• Low cost
• Can be used globally
 The motivation behind the ZigBee
Alliance

• Organization with a mission to define a complete

open global standard for reliable, cost-effective,
low-power, wirelessly networked products
addressing monitoring and control.
• ZigBee alliance provides
• upper layer stack and application profiles
• compliance and certification testing
• branding
• Result is a set of recognizable, interoperable
solutions
 Who supports The ZigBee Alliance?

• Eight promoter companies:

– Chipcon, Ember, Freescale, Honeywell,
Mitsubishi, Motorola, Philips and Samsung
• A rapidly growing list (Now over 175) of industry
leaders from 29 countries spanning 6 continents
committed to providing ZigBee-compliant products
and solutions
– Companies include chip suppliers, wireless IP
providers, OEMs, test equipment manufacturers
and end users.
 The ZigBee Platform

Public Application Profile

Certified
Product

ZigBee Stack

Compliant
IEEE 802.15.4 Platform

ZigBee Stack: Network Layer + Application Support Layer

 The ZigBee Platform

Private Application Profile

ZigBee Stack

Compliant
IEEE 802.15.4 Platform
 Basic Radio Characteristics: 802.15.4 SR-
WPAN

ZigBee technology relies

upon IEEE 802.15.4, which
has excellent performance
in low SNR environments

(NB: the above are RAW data rates: typical WSN INFO rates ~ 1- 512 b/s?)
Other 802.15.4 characteristics
• Defines the PHY and MAC layers on which ZigBee
stack relies
• Supports star or peer-to-peer (tree or mesh)
network topologies
• Channel access mechanism: Carrier Sense Multiple
Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA-CA)
• Two types of nodes:
• reduced-function device (RFD)
• full-function device (FFD)
• Targeted coverage area (POS = personal
operating space): on the order of 10 m.
(might be more)
 802.15.4 PHY layer tasks
• activate/deactivate transceivers (low duty cycle saves energy)
• estimate signal strengths (energy detection) as part
of CSMA mechanism
• compute link quality indicators (LQI, or SINR)
• listen to channels and declare availability or not (clear
channel assessment - CCA)
• tuning of transceivers to supported channels
• transmit and receive data (16-symbol ”quasi-orthogonal” (?)
modulation using O-QPSK and DSSS)
• conform to out-of-band power level regulations
 802.15.4 MAC layer tasks
• for PAN coordinators: generate beacons
(if operating in beacon-enabled mode)
A beacon is a special frame sent out by the PAN coordinator for
the purpose of synchronization with other units.
Beacon-enabled mode offers power savings since units
can ”sleep” between being ”woken up” by beacons.
• for all nodes: synchronize against received beacons (if...)
• maintain and break up PAN connections
• give channel access to nodes according to
CSMA-CA (based on PHY layer info)
• maintain guaranteed time slot mechanism in
beacon-enabled mode
• frame acknowledgement, ARQ, CRC
 More on ZigBee (802.15.4)
channel access options
• Non-beacon network:
– A simple, traditional multiple access system used in simple peer and near-
peer networks
– Standard ALOHA CSMA-CA communications
– Positive acknowledgement for successfully received packets
• Beacon-enabled network:
– Network coordinator transmits beacons (start and end of time-slotted
superframe) at predetermined intervals
– Superframe may be split between contention access period, contention
free period (containing guaranteed time slots), and inactive period
– Beacon Mode powerful for controlling power consumption in extended
networks like cluster tree or mesh
– Allows all clients in a local piece of the network the ability to know when to
communicate with each other
– PAN coordinator manages the channel and arranges the calls
 Basic ZigBee network characteristics

• Up to 65,536 network nodes

(theoretically...)
• Optimized for timing-critical
applications and power
management
– Time to Join Network: <30ms
– Sleeping to active: <15ms
– Channel access time: <15ms Network coordinator
– (theoretically... Under idealized Full Function node
assumptions... 10 -15 times Reduced Function node

more in practice?) Communications flow

• Full Mesh Networking Support Virtual links
 ZigBee Mesh Networking

Slide Courtesy of
 ZigBee Mesh Networking

Slide Courtesy of
 ZigBee Mesh Networking

Slide Courtesy of
 ZigBee Mesh Networking

Slide Courtesy of
 ZigBee Mesh Networking

Slide Courtesy of
 ZigBee Network Topologies

Mesh

Star

PAN coordinator
Cluster Tree Full Function Device
Reduced Function Device
 Cluster Tree Networks
• Cluster tree networks enable a peer-
peer network to be formed with a
minimum of routing overhead.
20
14 CH2
12 11
4 5 CH1 CH4

8 13
6

DD/CH0
0 CH5
7
2
1 3 9
CH3
22

10

CH6
“Parent”
“Child”

Links indicate familial relationship, not communications capability

 Cluster Tree Networks

• Employ multi-hop routing

• Can be very large: 255 clusters of 254
nodes each = 64,770 nodes
(theoretically...)
• May span physically large areas
• Suitable for latency-tolerant applications
 ZigBee Device Types
• ZigBee Coordinator (ZC)
– One and only one required for each ZB network.
– Initiates network formation.
– Acts as 802.15.4 2003 PAN coordinator (FFD).
– May act as router once network is formed.
– Not necessarily dedicated device, can perform applications
• ZigBee Router (ZR)
– Optional network component.
– May associate with ZC or with previously associated ZR.
– Acts as 802.15.4 2003 coordinator (FFD).
– Local address (destination) allocation/de-allocation.
– Participates in multihop routing of messages.
– Looks after its own ZEDs (broadcasting/routing)
• ZigBee End Device (ZED)
– Optional network component.
– Shall not allow association.
– Shall not participate in routing.
– Low power operation; put to sleep by parent.
Network Structure
Network Structure
Network Structure
 ZigBee Applications
security
HVAC TV
AMR VCR
lighting control DVD/CD
access control BUILDING CONSUMER remote
AUTOMATION ELECTRONICS

ZigBee mouse
patient
Wireless Control that keyboard
monitoring
fitness PERSONAL Simply Works PC & joystick
HEALTH CARE PERIPHERALS
monitoring

asset mgt security

process RESIDENTIAL/ HVAC
control LIGHT lighting control
environmental INDUSTRIAL COMMERCIAL
CONTROL CONTROL
access control
energy mgt lawn & garden irrigation
 Advantages of ZigBee over
proprietary solutions?
• Product interoperability
• Vendor independence
• Increased product innovation as a result
of industry standardization
• A common platform is more cost effective
than creating a new proprietary solution
from scratch every time
• Companies can focus their energies on
finding and serving customers
 How far away is ZigBee?
Press release:

• ZigBee gets ready for certification

By Graeme Wearden
ZDNet
January 06, 2006

• The ZigBee Alliance, a group of companies pushing a new wireless

technology that could give network connectivity to all electrical devices,
is getting ready to certify products.

The Alliance announced on Thursday that it is launching a range of test

programmes for manufacturers who want to develop ZigBee-
compatible devices. This certification process should give consumers
confidence that ZigBee products from different companies are
compatible.
 How far away is ZigBee (2)?
Press release:

• CES, Las Vegas - January 6, 2006 - Chipcon AS, the leading provider
of low power, low data rate RF-ICs announced today that ZigBee™
compliance has been granted to the recently released CC2430ZDK Pro
ZigBee™ development platform, which consists of two different
hardware platforms, both utilizing the CC2430 SoC. The solution uses
the Chipcon Z-Stack™, which is also used on Chipcon’s CC2420
transceiver ZigBee™ compliant platform. The CC2430ZDK Pro
ZigBee™ development kit enables customers to develop the markets
lowest cost and lowest power ZigBee™ certified product.
• The compliance means that OEMs developing with Chipcon ZigBee™
development kits are assured that their products are interoperable with
other ZigBee™ compliant platforms. This means they will be able to
form a single, cohesive ZigBee™ network capable of passing data for
all applications on the network.
 How far away is ZigBee (3)?
Chipcon press release continued:

• The CC2430 ... (...)... is a true System-on-Chip (SoC) solution, combining

the industry leading radio 2.4 GHz transceiver of the IEEE 802.15.4
compliant CC2420 with an industry proven, compact and efficient 8051
microcontroller. The CC2430 SoC family consists of three products ... (...)...
The difference between them is the different flash configurations, 32, 64 and
128 kBytes with each configuration having 8 kBytes of RAM and other
powerful supporting features. The CC2430 is based on Chipcon's
SmartRF®03 technology platform in 0.18 micrometer CMOS and is available
in a small 7×7 mm 48 pin package. During receive and transmit modes, the
current consumption of the CC2430 is as low as 27 mA and 25 mA
respectively. CC2430’s sleep mode and its short transition time to active
mode makes it an ideal solution for applications that require very long battery
lifetime. This configuration can be used for all kinds of ZigBee™ wireless
network nodes, including coordinators, routers and end devices.
• For development, CC2430 is supported by the Zigbee™ certified
CC2430ZDK Pro Zigbee™ development kit and a powerful integrated
development environment (IDE). In-circuit interactive debugging is supported
on the CC2430ZDK Pro with the industry leading IAR compiler’s IDE, well
recognized in the embedded community.
That’s the commercial... What
is the reality?
• Consider results obtained by Erik Undheim during his
NTNU MScEE thesis work ”An evaluation of the IEEE
802.15.4 and ZigBee standards for Industrial
Applications” (done at ABB CRC with Niels Aakvaag
as local supervisor)
• Based on simulation results in NS-2 for 4 different
scenarios/experimental setups (use cases defined by
ABB) with simplified propagation models:
– Star topology performance for high-rate applications
– ZigBee performance for large multihop topologies in mesh-
mode
– Differential QoS experiment for ZigBee mesh networks
– Required active part of duty cycled ZigBee networks in mesh
mode
 Some key results
– Star topology performance for high-rate applications in small
areas (interference-limited: up to 101 nodes within
28mx28m):

• with 5 packets per second per node, up to 50 - 60

simultaneously transmitting nodes could be supported with
acceptable packet loss ratio
• for more transmitters, sum throughput (goodput) starts to
decrease...

– ZigBee performance for large multihop topologies in mesh-

mode (up 100 nodes within 100mx100m):

• dramatic performance degradation for high node densities:

linear increase in packet loss ratio in number of transmitters
above 30-50 (25 - 30 % packet loss at 100 nodes!) +
substantial increase in average latency (but packet loss
dominates degradation)
 Some key results, cont’d
– Differential QoS experiment for ZigBee mesh networks (10-20
sensors randomly distributed within 100mx100m)
• Assumed two sensor types with different priorities with regard to QoS
guarantees (temperature and pressure, with latter highest prioritized)
- priorities varied
• Decrease in packet loss ratio for highest prioritized sensors was
overall smaller than hoped/expected...
• When packet loss ratio for sensors with lowest priority is very high
(leading to lot of retransmissions with route discovery initiations),
packet loss ratio for highest priority sensors increases again too!

– Required active part of duty cycled ZigBee networks in mesh

mode (random node distribution within 100mx100m)
• Note: duty cycle = active part + sleep part; sleep part provides power
savings. (Typical goal might be 99 % sleep?)
• BUT: for a given PER requirement , required active part (in seconds)
found to increase exponentially with node density! 10 seconds @ 20
transmitters.
• Thus low-power duty cycles means extremely long sleep periods and
thus extremely low data rates (long packet intervals)...
Caveats: Simplifications which might
influence the results
• Results obtained with simplified propagation scenario
(path loss considered; no fading; fixed circular
transmission range for all nodes [40 meters])

• Routing based on original ”AODV” algorithm

(modified in standard, as far as I understand)

• Simplified queuing mechanism used

• Node distribution is random within a specified area -

no planning
 The shortcomings are good
for CROPS! :-)
• It means that there is still lots of room to
improve on ZigBee and 802.15.4.
• The difficulties do not necessarily imply that it
is impossible to what ZigBee claims to be
able to do (but maybe will not be completely
able to do...)
• ZigBee is mostly ”strictly layered”...
• We can use this as motivation for own cross-
layer research within (both known and
unexpected) limitations discovered in ZigBee
performance!