ZigBee-based Wireless Sensor Network Research Articles

Data and Management Traffic of IEEE 802.15.4 ZigBee-Based WSN

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are an amalgam of wireless technologies. They are extensively utilized in numerous industries, including agriculture, medical, and military fields. In the vast majority of cases, these technologies are deployed in monitoring environmental or physical parameters including sound, pressure, and temperature. WSNs employ various technologies, including radio frequency (RF), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, and Z-Wave. Zigbee in particular has greater potential for energy-savings in long-distance transmissions, and consequently has emerged as the preferred standard for use in WSNs. In Zigbee-assisted networks, the three primary data-communication devices are ZigBee coordinators, routers, and nodes. The coordinator device gathers, stores, and processes the data before forwarding it to the next appropriate node or the base-station. The system model comprises several zones with each zone containing several sensors. Each sensor node transfers data to the master node, which serves as the ZigBee coordinator. The software used for this simulated investigation is the Riverbed Modeler V17.5. This paper examines the data traffic, management traffic, and load performance of the four modelled systems. The findings demonstrate that whereas the number of coordinators has no effect on data traffic, an increase in the number of routers correspondingly increases both the amount of data sent and received. The MAC follows the same pattern.

RSSI Measurement Analysis of Zigbee-Based Wireless Sensor Networks in Various Topologies for Solar Panel Monitoring

Abstract— Solar panels require performance monitoring when energy shortages occur in the area. Monitoring solar panels requires a detection device to detect solar panels, including the ACS712 current sensor for monitoring the output current of the solar panel, a DC voltage sensor for monitoring battery performance, and a DHT11 temperature sensor for monitoring the temperature of the solar panel storage battery. The WSN technology that can work is ZigBee communication. This ZigBee communication research uses various topology methods, including star, tree, and mesh topologies. Solar panel monitoring tests are carried out indoors and outdoors. The ZigBee communication device used is the XBee S2C device, which operates at a frequency of 2.4 GHz. From a comparison of various topologies, the mesh topology is a topology with good performance because it has the characteristic of choosing a router with the fastest path to reach the coordinator. It is proven by monitoring solar panels with an optimal distance of 80 m, which is carried out from outdoors with an RSSI value of -84 dBm, a throughput of 0.55 kbps, and a delay of 2.77 ms, producing power for 150 minutes with an average current of 0.14 A, voltage of 9.86 V, and temperature of 31.48°C. The number of disturbances and weather conditions greatly affect signal propagation, which can hamper the data transmission process. Throughput fluctuates due to uncertain weather conditions, and delay fluctuates due to a lot of interference from other radio signals.
 Keyworrds— Wireless Sensor Nirbael (WSN), RSSI, ZigBee, Panel Surya, Thinger.IO

IIoT Low-Cost ZigBee-Based WSN Implementation for Enhanced Production Efficiency in a Solar Protection Curtains Manufacturing Workshop.

Nowadays, the Industry 4.0 concept and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) are considered essential for the implementation of automated manufacturing processes across various industrial settings. In this regard, wireless sensor networks (WSN) are crucial due to their inherent mobility, easy deployment and maintenance, scalability, and low power consumption, among other benefits. In this context, the presented paper proposes an optimized and low-cost WSN based on ZigBee communication technology for the monitoring of a real manufacturing facility. The company designs and manufactures solar protection curtains and aims to integrate the deployed WSN into the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system in order to optimize their production processes and enhance production efficiency and cost estimation capabilities. To achieve this, radio propagation measurements and 3D ray launching simulations were conducted to characterize the wireless channel behavior and facilitate the development of an optimized WSN system that can operate in the complex industrial environment presented and validated through on-site wireless channel measurements, as well as interference analysis. Then, a low-cost WSN was implemented and deployed to acquire real-time data from different machinery and workstations, which will be integrated into the ERP system. Multiple data streams have been collected and processed from the shop floor of the factory by means of the prototype wireless nodes implemented. This integration will enable the company to optimize its production processes, fabricate products more efficiently, and enhance its cost estimation capabilities. Moreover, the proposed system provides a scalable platform, enabling the integration of new sensors as well as information processing capabilities.

Zigbee based Wireless Sensor Network for Smart Energy Meter

Wireless sensor networks are expanding across a wide range of application scenarios. The most widely used transmitter is "ZigBee," which is used in wireless sensor networks. Based on the IEEE standard known as IEEE 802.15.4, ZigBee is an enabling low-cost technology that offers minimal energy consumption and a low data rate. It is used for remote control, medical aid, home automation, industry control, and other wireless sensor applications, in addition to wireless sensor networks and personal area network applications. This paper aims to develop a wireless sensor network and a protocol for smart energy meter applications. Our proposed system comprises a digital energy meter, a ZigBee coordinator, and a management application. A terminal alert and a cover alarm can be automatically sent to the management software by the wireless meter reading system once it has read the unit. Mistakes from Errors in leakage metering reading to manual meter reading can be avoided. This proposed system will improve efficiency by reducing labor intensity to liberate labor and force. The system setup can accommodate a large number of energy meters with sufficient hop network depth to detect a new energy meter automatically. The technology can be widely used in wireless monitoring and control applications because of its low cost, low power consumption, extended battery life, and mesh networking's ability to extend high reliability to a broader range. To connect a variety of low-power devices wirelessly, ZigBee will satisfy the rising demand. For the future generation of industrial technologies, ZigBee will be deployed.

A Framework for Smart Homes for Elderly People Using Labview®

This paper deals with home automation systems that are essential for safe and independent living of elderly people. These individuals must be able to perform their Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) without help from caretakers. They must be confident enough that help is just a few minutes with the systems in place. The focus will be on the medical and emergency systems, which are most essential for independent living. Zigbee based Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are used to collect the data throughout the home. Smart shirts and smart phones monitor different parameters of the individual and transmit the data to the home network. A PC running LabVIEW is used as the central control unit for the entire house. The house must have a fail proof communication framework for connecting with emergency services, doctors, helpers and relatives. The home network is connected to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and internet. SMS, email, prerecorded voice-based telephone calls are appropriately used to report emergencies. A GUI (Graphical User Interface) was built in LabVIEW in order to control and simulate an entire home. Ambient Intelligence is built into the system to make it adaptive and dynamic as far as possible.

A fuzzy model for content-centric routing in Zigbee-based wireless sensor networks (WSNs).

WSN is one of the most efficient technologies in intelligent communication and because of its advantages, this technology has been utilized in various applications. By using WSNs, different types of data can be collected and analyzed in wide environments. The high variety of applications and types of data available in this network can cause several challenges about heterogeneous data routing. This research, presents a Fuzzy Model for Content-Centric Routing (FMCCR) in WSN to solve these challenges. The performance of FMCCR is based on two basic steps: "topology control", and "data transmission through content-centric and fuzzy logic-based routing algorithm". In the first step of FMCCR, the network topology is constructed. In the second step of the proposed method, data transmission paths are determined based on network topology and content type, and data transmission is performed. The performance of FMCCR has been evaluated in a simulation environment and the results have been compared with previous algorithms. The results show that FMCCR reduce energy consumption and improve the traffic load distribution in the network in addition to increasing the network lifetime. According to the results, FMCCR can increase network lifetime at least 10.74% and at the same time, deliver at least 88.1% more packets through the network, compared to previous methods. These results, prove the efficiency of the proposed method for using in real-world scenarios.

ZigBee-Based Wireless Sensor Network Topology Design and Comparison in Residential Areas

When designing a wireless sensor network based on ZigBee, it is very important to choose the right network topology, especially in networks with many nodes such as residential areas. Choosing the wrong topology will have an impact on the performance of the wireless sensor network as a whole because it will cause a large delay value. To overcome this, in this study a ZigBee-based wireless sensor network simulation was carried out using an environmental model consisting of several residential units, with one ZigBee device for each house. In addition, three ZigBee network topologies namely mesh, star, and tree are used in this simulation. This is done to determine which topology model will work best in a residential environment. The housing used for the simulation in this study is Citraland Waterfront City Housing which is located in Palu City, Central Sulawesi Province, Indonesia. By using simulations in the Opnet Modeler 14.5 application, it is known that the star topology on the ZigBee network is suitable for application in residential areas with a large number of nodes. This can be seen from the highest throughput values and the lowest media access delay, end-to-end delay, hop number, and packet dropped values compared to tree and mesh topologies.

Development of Vibration and dust Monitoring Technology in Underground Mines using ZigBee-based Wireless Sensor Network

Development of Vibration and dust Monitoring Technology in Underground Mines using ZigBee-based Wireless Sensor Network

Fire detection and notification using a Zigbee wireless sensor network

Forest fires are the most common threat in the woods. A combination of natural and human-made factors contributes to forest fires. Forest fires destroy trees, which are essential to produce oxygen, which we need to live. This new Zigbee-based wireless sensor network is being developed to overcome the limitations of existing technologies like the MODIS satellite-based detection system and a basic wireless sensor network. It's difficult to contain a forest fire that wasn't predicted or noticed in time. As a result, it's critical to catch a wildfire early enough before it spreads too far. Using a GSM device, the proposed method would gather data on forest conditions such as temperature, humidity, smoke, and flames, and deliver it to the appropriate authorities. There are three parts to the project's concept. Modules for sensors, gateways, and control centres make up the three sections. This project's main objective is to benefit others.

Real-Time Monitoring of Environmental Parameters in a Commercial Gestating Sow House Using a ZigBee-Based Wireless Sensor Network

Significant intensification in livestock farming has become prevalent to meet the increasing meat production demand, resulting in a higher density of pigs in relatively small areas in a commercial swine building. The subsequent challenges of maintaining the quality of both routine management and environmental comfort of pigs to minimize the loss of both pigs’ health and welfare can be attained by implementing autonomous monitoring and intelligent management decisions based on precision livestock farming (PLF). A three-layer wireless sensor network (WSN) based on ZigBee technology has been devised to monitor four environmental parameters in real-time, namely: temperature, relative humidity, concentrations of carbon dioxide and ammonia in a commercial gestating sow house. The overall packet loss rate of the WSN system which reported 16,371 records from its 41 indoor slave nodes in a 10-min interval for three consecutive days was 4%. The carbon dioxide sensors had an average outlier rate of 6.5% after a series of preprocessing procedures. The spatial and temporal characteristics showed that the carbon dioxide level exceeded the limit of 2700 mg/m3 twice during both 07:00–08:00 and 14:00–15:00. Besides, the overall NH3 concentration in the swine building was maintained in a relatively low-level range with a maximum of less than 8 mg/m3. In sum, the real-time monitoring and timely intervention of microclimate in this commercial gestating sow house can be achieved by deploying this WSN system, thereby making it possible to provide an intelligent decision on precise management of livestock automatically.

RSSI-based node selection using neural network parameterised by particle swarm optimisation

ZigBee is a popular wireless communication protocol developed for low-cost, short-range networking such as wireless sensor network (WSN) consisting of a large number of sensor nodes. Since the connectivity is limited on each node, some nodes might become isolated from the network, especially during the stage of ZigBee commissioning. The performance of the existing node connection schemes for WSN is significantly influenced by noise or operational condition of the environment. In this paper a machine learning-based scheme for effective node connection of ZigBee-based WSN is proposed. It employs back propagation neural network (BPNN) to accurately estimate the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) samples used for the selection of the nearest node for connection, while the particle swarm optimisation (PSO) algorithm is employed to properly initialise the BPNN. Computer simulation reveals that the proposed scheme consistently allows higher accuracy of node selection than the existing RSSI-based schemes in varying operational conditions, even with a small number of RSSI samples. It also requires smaller processing time.

Implementation of on-demand low rate wireless parameter monitoring system for industrial machineries.

Systematic and rigorous monitoring of critical equipment is the cornerstone of any successful preventive management system in the industrial environment. Recent developments in cost-effective wireless sensor network (WSN) technologies promising a wider and more sustainable deployment of distributed sensing and processing infrastructure. In this research work, it is mainly focused on the electrical monitoring parameter and enable remote switching devices for optimal power management systems using ZigBee. This paper proposes a digital system for electrical system parameters such as voltage and current using ZigBee-based wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The main feature of ZigBee protocol, to act as a communicable medium between transmitter and receiver modules, which is suitable for the industrial environment.

Preventing forest fires using a wireless sensor network

Forest fire is a natural phenomenon in many ecosystems across the world. The forecasting of fire danger conditions resembles one of the most important parts in forest fire management. A ZigBee-based wireless sensor network was proposed for monitoring fire danger and predicting the behaviour of fire after occurrence. This technique is intended for real-time operation, given the urgent need for forest protection against fires. The architecture of a wireless sensor network for forest fire detection is described. From the information collected by the system, decisions on firefighting or fire prevention can be made more quickly by the relevant government departments. We believe that by making the sensor network able to reconfigure rapidly in response to changes in the local conditions upon which the network is dependent, we will generate an adaptable weather monitoring and fire detection system.

Implementing Zigbee-based Wireless Sensor Network in the Design of Water Quality Monitoring System

This study presents the design and development of a precision fishing technology utilized in water quality monitoring with phytoremediation system using a Zigbee-based Wireless Sensor Network. The system afforded a real-time water quality monitoring using multiple sensors spatially deployed. The sensor node implemented in the Wireless Sensor Network to perform data sensing utilities with the water quality parameters including the water temperature, pH level, water dissolved oxygen and the water level during high-tide and low-tide. During the development, a P89V51RD2 microcontroller, ZigBee module with IEEE 802.15.4 standard, and radio frequency (RF) transceiver were utilized. The developed precision fishing technology utilized the Internet of Things architecture. The IoT device layer includes the temperature sensor, pH sensor, dissolved oxygen sensor, and the water level sensor. Phytoremediation was also used as an alternative solution for soil and water remediation. Further studies using recent and advanced remote sensing technologies and IoT-based solutions can be developed to address issues in the primary sector of the economy.

IoT Based Multimode Sensing Platform for Underground Coal Mines

Real-time information of the underground environment plays a vital role for underground coal mines. For this purpose, a number of systems have been developed by earlier researchers. However, the application of IoT is very limited due to the nonexistence of TCP/IP in underground coal mines. Therefore, attempts have been made to develop an IP based multimode sensing platform for realizing the vision of IoT in underground coal mines. In the present development, a Zigbee based wireless sensor network (WSN) has been initially established and extended to IoT with IP enabled gateway. In addition, the data discard mechanism has been used to address the life span of the sensor network. A dashboard has been designed to access the data at the confluence of WSN and the gateway. Further, an android app has been developed for retrieving the data using the corresponding IP address. The data have also been visualized by the web browser in the same fashion. Finally, the full-scale IoT system has been tested and it is evident from the obtained results that the response of the system is in agreement.

A New Method for Battery Lifetime Estimation Using Experimental Testbed for Zigbee Wireless Technology

Many Zigbee-based wireless sensor networks have been developed for outdoor applications such as agriculture monitoring. The main attractiveness of Zigbee wireless module is in its potential to set up self-organizing network that requires no network backbone and extremely low cost with low-power wireless networking. Many simulations have been performed for testing the capabilities of wireless communication device and the battery lifetime. However, the results from the simulation do not capture the actual environment effects and the simulators allow users to isolate certain factors by tuning to different parameters. This paper provides experimental results on actual voltage drop using Zigbee protocol devices when communicating temperature, humidity and soil moisture data using a 900mAh battery both in indoor and outdoor environments. It is observed that the wireless nodes are capable of relaying data up to 143 meters on unobstructed line of sights in an outdoor environment with some observation of packet drop. The results differ from previous researches that perform the experiments on shorter range which only covers 50 cm distance between transmitter node and receiver node for 2 bytes of data transfer. The paper proposes a new method for battery lifetime estimation which is derived from number of times data packet can be transmitted. This study also suggests to conduct experiment by including the environmental factors to capture the actual performance of wireless device and the impact to packet drop. The experiment concludes the suitability of Zigbee wireless communication for short-range applications of up to 143 meters which is significantly farther than other reported experiments.

Advanced Wireless Sensor Networks for Sustainable Buildings Using Building Ducts

The communication technology ZigBee has been widely adopted in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) for a wide range of industrial applications. However, although ZigBee provides low-power, low-cost mesh networking, it cannot guarantee steady and predictable network performance as channels are time-variant and highly attenuated by man-made obstacles. The networks also suffer from interference, especially in the important 2.4 GHz industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) band. These degraded channel characteristics increase the number of hops, thus increasing both the packet error rate and transmission delays. In this paper, we report the deployment of a ZigBee-based WSN inside an existing building duct system utilized for intelligent waste collection in an industrial environment. The Received Signal Strength (RSS) and path losses were measured, revealing that the duct communication channel acts as a very effective waveguide, providing a more reliable and consistent network performance than conventional free space channels.

A Study of Delay and Data Traffic of IEEE 802.15.4 ZigBee-Based WSN in a Smart Home

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) play a key role in modern applications, for instance, in smart homes as will be demonstrated in this paper. ZigBee technology provides better support when compared with WiFi, Bluetooth and Ultra Wide Band (UWB) standards regarding transmission range. This paper deals with the use of ZigBee WSN in a domestic application, namely smart home control. This model comprises a smart home with multiple rooms, designed in such a way that each room has sensors comprise for a varied environment. The sensor nodes will be presented by ZigBee end device which transmits the traffic to a master node in the form of a ZigBee coordinator. An OPNET modeler V14.5 was used in this simulation study. This paper presents seven models related to delay and data traffic received to improve WSN performance. Seven different WSN designs variations were utilized according to the number of rooms, sensors, coordinators, and routers. The outcomes demonstrate that one coordinator model causes more delay when compared with multiple coordinator models. Conversely, the presence of a router causes additional delay. This model should help electrical engineers when designing smart homes that utilize WSNs.

Statistical Multipath Queue-Wise Preemption Routing for ZigBee-Based WSN

Nowadays, wireless sensor network (WSN) is an important component in IoT environment, which enables efficient data collection and transmission. Since WSN consists of a large number of sensor nodes, network congestion can easily occur which significantly degrades the performance of entire network. In this paper a novel scheme called SMQP (Statistical Multipath Queue-wise Preemption) routing is proposed to balance the load and avoid the congestion for ZigBee-based WSN. This is achieved by employing statistical path scheduling and queue-wise preemption with multiple paths between any source and destination node. NS2 simulation reveals that the proposed scheme significantly improves the QoS in terms of delivery ratio, end-to-end delay, and packet delivery ratio compared to the representative routing schemes for WSN such as ad hoc on-demand distance vector and ad hoc on-demand multipath distance vector scheme.

Prediction of spontaneous combustion in the coal stockpile based on an improved metabolic grey model

Abstract Spontaneous combustion of coal can lead to serious environmental pollution, safety hazards and huge economic losses. Hazard prevention and environmental protection requires effective monitoring network and efficient prediction methods. To acquire the real-time data of coal parameters we designed multi-layered Zig-bee based wireless sensor network. The shape of the coal pile is formed by the industrial laser scanner followed by the formation of 3D temperature point cloud field via Kriging interpolation. Afterwards, an integrated evaluation indicator Heat Loss Capacity (HLC) is proposed, which synthesizes various factors inducing spontaneous combustion. The real-time and high accurate HLC prediction is realized by using metabolic method to update the raw sequence of the GM(1,1) grey prediction model in cycle with the latest acquired sensor data. Finally, a hybrid model ABC-MGM(1,1) combining the ABC optimization algorithm with the metabolic GM(1,1) model is proposed. Experiment shows that the ABC-MGM(1,1) model has better performance in parameter optimization as well as HLC prediction, especially for short-term prediction. The proposed method has been utilized to predict spontaneous combustion of the stockpiled coal in Xutang power plant of China. The timely parameter acquisition by 25 Zig-bee nodes and effective prediction by the proposed model shows great practicability in safety and hazard prevention.