ZigBee based data collection in wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSN), referring to groups of technologies wirelessly controlled, are widely used in many different fields, agriculture, medical, military, etc. These technologies are mainly used for monitoring physical or environmental conditions, such as temperatures, sound, pressure, and so on. In WSN fields, there are technologies as Wi-Fi, radio frequency (RF), Bluetooth, ZigBee, Z-Wave, and so on. Furthermore, there is one of this technology that offers more outstanding futures to provide more energy-saving and long distances of transmissions compared to other technologies, and that is Zigbee technology, and this had become for many applications, the first high-quality to use and consequently the most used in WSNs. In Zigbee aided WSNs, are included three main devices used to communicate data, that is a ZigBee coordinator (network coordinator), ZigBee router, and ZigBee end-devices. The data sensed is transmitted from sensor nodes through coordinators to a base-station (BS), this device (coordinator), collects the data, stores it in a memory, processes, and finally forward to the next suitable nodes or the BS. This research presents the concepts and discussions of Zigbee technologies used in WSNs. Utmost ZigBee communication technologies are revised and analyzed, as well as simulation results with different scenarios are addressed comprehensively. Proposals for advance applications in WSNs are presented. Suggestions for future developments are provided.