ZIGBEE TECHNOLOGY

1. What is ZigBee ?

ZigBee is a technological standard, based on the IEEE 802.15.4

standard, which was created specifically for control and sensor
networks. Within the broad organization of the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the 802 group is
the section that deals with network operations and technologies.
Group 15 works more specifically with wireless networking, and
Task Group 4 drafted the 802.15.4 standard for a low data rate
wireless personal area network (WPAN). The standard for this
WPAN specifies not only a low data rate but also low power
consumption and low complexity, among other things.
The ZigBee standard is built on top of this IEEE standard,
addressing remote monitoring and control for sensory network
applications. This standard was created by an organization
known as the ZigBee Alliance, which is composed of a large
number of companies and industry leaders striving to enable
such control devices based on said standard.

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2.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 20kbps (@868 MHz)
• 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 networks
• Optional guaranteed time slot for applications requiring
low latency
• Fully hand-shaked protocol for transfer reliability
• Range: 50m typical (5-500m based on environment)

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3. Network Topologies

3 types of topologies that ZigBee supports: star topology, peer-

to-peer topology and cluster tree.

3.1 Star Topology

In the star topology, the communication is established between

devices and a single central controller, called the PAN
coordinator.
The PAN coordinator may be mains powered while the devices
will most likely be battery powered. Applications that benefit
from this topology include home automation, personal computer
(PC) peripherals, toys and games. After an FFD is activated for
the first time, it may establish its own network and become the
PAN coordinator. Each start network chooses a PAN identifier,
which is not currently used by any other network within the
radio sphere of influence. This allows each star network to
operate independently.

Star Topology

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3.2 Peer-to-peer Topology

In peer-to-peer topology, there is also one PAN coordinator. In

contrast to star topology, any device can communicate with any
other device as long as they are in range of one another.
A peer-to-peer network can be ad hoc, self-organizing and self-
healing. Applications such as industrial control and monitoring,
wireless sensor networks, asset and inventory tracking would
benefit from such a topology. It also allows multiple hops
to route messages from any device to any other device in the
network. It can provide reliability by multipath routing.

Peer-Peer Technology

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3.3. Mesh Topology

In a mesh topology, there is one coordinator and a

set of FFD nodes associated to it. Each node is a
router and permits other nodes to associate to it.
Each node can communicate directly with other
nodes if they are in its POS “Personal Operating
Space” i.e. in-range transmission, or, passing by
other nodes (acting as routers in this case) to reach
its target node. RFD devices can be attached to the
network as leaves.

Mesh Topology

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ZigBee/IEEE802.15.4 - Typical Traffic Types

Addressed

Periodic data
Application defined rate (e.g., sensors)
Intermittent data
Application/external stimulus defined rate (e.g., light
switch)
Repetitive low latency data
Allocation of time slots (e.g., mouse)

Each of these traffic types mandates different attributes from

the MAC. The IEEE802.15.4 MAC is flexible enough to
handle each of these types.
• Periodic data can be handled using the
beaconing system whereby the sensor will wake
up for the beacon, check for any messages and
then go back to sleep.
• Intermittent data can be handled either in a
beaconless system or in a disconnected
fashion. In a disconnected operation the device
will only attach to the network when it needs to
communicate saving significant energy.
• Low latency applications may choose to the
guaranteed time slot (GTS) option. GTS is a
method of QoS in that it allows each device a
specific duration of time each Superframe to do

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whatever it wishes to do without contention or

latency.

4. ZigBee Architecture

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5.1 Physical(PHY) and MAC layers

The PHY service enables the transmission and reception of PHY

protocol data units (PPDU) across the physical radio channel.
The features of the IEEE 802.15.4 PHY physical layer 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.

Receiver Energy Detection (ED)

The receiver energy detection (ED) measurement is intended for

use by a network layer as part of channel selection algorithm. It
is an estimate of the received signal power within the bandwidth
of an IEEE 802.15.4 channel. No attempt is made to identify or
decode signals on the channel. The ED time should be equal to 8
symbol periods.
The ED result shall be reported as an 8-bit integer ranging from
0x00 to 0xff. The minimum ED value (0) shall indicate received
power less than 10dB above the specified receiver sensitivity.

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Link Quality Indication (LQI)

The LQI measurement is a characterization of the strength

and/or quality of a received packet. The measurement
may be implemented using receiver ED, a signal-to-noise
estimation or a combination of these methods. The use of LQI
result is up to the network or application layers.

Clear Channel Assessment (CCA)

The clear channel assessment (CCA) is performed according to

at least one of the following three methods:

Energy above threshold: CCA shall report a busy medium

upon detecting anyenergy above the ED threshold.

Carrier sense only: CCA shall report a busy medium only upon
the detection of a signal with the modulation and spreading
characteristics of IEEE 802.15.4. This signal may be above or
below the ED threshold.

Carrier sense with energy above threshold. CCA shall report

a busy medium only upon the detection of a signal with the
modulation and spreading characteristics of IEEE
802.15.4 with energy above the ED threshold.

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Two device types

Full function device (FFD)
• Any topology
• Network coordinator capable
• Talks to any other device
Other Full Function Devices (FFD's) may be found in the
network, and these devices support all of the 802.15.4
functions. They can serve as network coordinators, network
routers, or as devices that interact with the physical world.
Reduced function device (RFD)
• Limited to star topology
• Cannot become a network coordinator
• Talks only to a network coordinator
• Very simple implementation
The final device found in these networks is the Reduced
Function Device (RFD), which usually only serve as devices
that interact with the physical world

5.2 Media access control (MAC) layer:

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5.2.1 Data Transfer modes

ZigBee operates in two main modes:
• non-beacon mode
• beacon mode.
Beacon mode is a fully coordinated mode in that all the device
know when to coordinate with one another. In this mode, the
network coordinator will periodically "wake-up" and send out a
beacon to the devices within its network.
This beacon subsequently wakes up each device, who must
determine if it has any message to receive. If not, the device
returns to sleep, as will the network coordinator, once its job is
complete.

Non-beacon network

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Non-beacon mode, on the other hand, is less coordinated, as any

device can communicate with the coordinator at will. However,
this operation can cause different devices within the network to
interfere with one another, and the coordinator must always be
awake to listen for signals, thus requiring more power. In any
case, ZigBee obtains its overall low power consumption because
the majority of network devices are able to remain inactive over
long periods of time.

Beacon network

5.2.2 Super Frame Structure

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The LR-WPAN standard allows the optional use of a superframe

structure. The format of the superframe is defined by the
coordinator. The superframe is bounded by network beacons, is
sent by the coordinator and is divided into 16 equally sized slots.
The beacon frame is transmitted in the first slot of each
superframe. If a coordinator does not wish to use a superframe
structure it may turn off the beacon transmissions. The beacons
are used to synchronize the attached devices, to identify the
PAN, and to describe the structure of the superframes. Any
device wishing to communicate during the contention access
period (CAP) between two beacons shall compete with other
devices using a slotted CSMA-CA mechanism. All transactions
shall be completed by the time of the next network beacon.

For low latency applications or applications requiring specific

data bandwidth, the PAN coordinator may dedicate portions of
the active super frame to that application. These portions are
called guaranteed time slots (GTSs).
The guaranteed time slots comprise the contention free period
(CFP), which always appears at the end of the active super
frame starting at a slot boundary immediately following the

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CAP, The PAN coordinator may allocate up to seven of these

GTSs and a GTS may occupy more than one slot period.
However, a sufficient portion of the CAP shall remain for
contention based access of other networked devices or new
devices wishing to join the network. All contention based
transactions shall be complete before the CFP begins. Also each
device transmitting in a GTS shall ensure that its transaction is
complete before the time of the next GTS or the end of the CFP.

5.2.3 The four basic frame types defined in

802.15.4: Data, ACK, MAC command, and beacon

The data frame provides a payload of up to 104

bytes. The frame is numbered to ensure that all
packets are tracked. A frame-check sequence

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ensures that packets are received without error.

This frame structure improves reliability in difficult
Conditions.

data frame

Another important structure for 802.15.4 is the

acknowledgment (ACK) frame. It provides feedback
from the receiver to the sender confirming that the
packet was received without error. The device takes
advantage of specified "quiet time" between frames
to send a short packet immediately after the datapacket
transmission.

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A MAC command frame provides the mechanism

for remote control and configuration of client
nodes. A centralized network manager uses MAC
to configure individual clients' command frames no matter how
large the network.

MAC command frame

Finally, the beacon frame wakes up client devices,

which listen for their address and go back to sleep
if they don't receive it. Beacons are important for
mesh and cluster-tree networks to keep all the
nodes synchronized without requiring those nodes
to consume precious battery energy by listening for
long periods of time.

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beacon frame

5.3 Network Layer

The responsibilities of the ZigBee NWK layer
include:
• Starting a network: The ability to
successfully establish a new network.

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• 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 Summary

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

5.4 Application layer

The ZigBee application layer consists of the APS sub-layer, the
ZDO and the manufacturer-defined 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 sub-
layer 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
ZigBee’s security methods such as public key, symmetric key, etc.

Application Support Layer

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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

5. SECURITY

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Security and data integrity are key benefits of the ZigBee

technology. ZigBee leverages the security model of the IEEE
802.15.4 MAC sublayer which specifies four security services:

• access control -- the device maintains a list of trusted devices

within the network

• data encryption -- which uses symmetric key 128-bit

advanced encryption standard

• frame integrity -- to protect data from being modified by

parties without cryptographic keys

• sequential freshness -- to reject data frames that have been

replayed—the network controller compares the freshness value
with the last known value from the device and rejects it if the
freshness value has not been updated to a new value
The actual security implementation is specified by
the implementer using a standardized toolbox of
ZigBee security software.

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6.Comparison Overview

Bluetooth ZigBee

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7.Conclusion

The ZigBee Standard enables the broad-based deployment of

reliable wireless networks with low complexity, low cost
solutions and provides the ability for a product to run for years
on inexpensive primary batteries. It is also, of course, capable of
inexpensively supporting robust mesh networking technologies .
ZigBee is all set to provide the consumers with ultimate
flexibility, mobility, and ease of use by building wireless
intelligence and capabilities into every day devices.
The mission of the ZigBee Working Group is to bring about the
existence of a broad range of interoperable consumer devices by
establishing open industry specifications for unlicensed, control
and entertainment devices requiring the lowest cost and lowest
power consumption communications between compliant devices
anywhere in and around the home.

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9.References

http://www.zigbee.org/en/documents/zigbeeovervie
w4.pdf
http://www.zigbee.org/en/about/faq.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZigBee
http://www.electronicstalk.com/news/ven/ven119.h
tml
http://www.zigbee.org/imwp/idms/popups/pop_dow
nload.asp?ContentID=7092

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