ZigBee based Small-World Home Area Networking for Decentralized Monitoring and Control of Smart Appliances

Abstract

This paper deals with the unique development of decentralized monitoring and control of smart electric appliances using ZigBee mesh topology for home area networking (HAN). All the communication nodes within the entire user's home are tied with ZigBee communication while the running status of individual smart equipment is displayed in a portable in-home-display (IHD) and/or in a smartphone through Wi-Fi Internet connectivity. In order to reduce the number of ZigBee nodes, a group of smart appliances is interfaced with one ZigBee module through a smart controller board while that controller unit will be housed inside the local switchboard. Few of such controller units are required for all the smart appliances for their monitoring and control. The maximum number of such controller units is thus equal to the number of maximum switch board in that house. Small World Mesh topology for ZigBee-based HAN with node degree greater than unity is used to provide the communication redundancy so that if any one of the ZigBee fails, the other portions can work uninterruptedly. The ZigBee Controller boards, IHD, and ZigBee to Wi-Fi gateway based small world HAN network is established in our laboratory which resulted in reduced transmission delay and robust network connectivity.