zigbee mesh network tutorial | zigbee mesh network basics
The zigbee mesh network tutorial covers zigbee mesh network basics with diagram. It mentions zigbee mesh network features and provide links to zigbee tutorials. It mentions advantages and disadvantages of zigbee mesh technology.
The figure-1 depicts common network topology types viz. star, tree and mesh. Figure shows how the zigbee elements e.g. coordinator, router and end devices are connected in these different network topology types.
Typically in mesh network, each node relays or routes data till it reaches the destination node. Mesh networking is very powerful in routing the data. In mesh, each of the nodes co-operate with other nodes so that equal distribution of data can be achieved.
The advantages of mesh networking are as follows:
• The range is extended as it allows data to hop node to node and
insertion of any node is easy in the network.
• The network is self healing type as in case of
failure of any node or lost connection conditions, data can be routed through
other healthy nodes in the network.
As zigbee supports mesh topology between its devices it has become very popular as wireless mesh networking system. It has been developed to support low data rate and low power applications.
Zigbee Mesh Network Basics
The figure-2 depicts simple zigbee mesh network consisting of a coordinator, routers and end devices. In this network all the nodes can transmit or receive the data but they have specific roles/functions. Zigbee is open standard and hence interoperability between different vendor devices can be done without any issues.
• Only one coordinator is needed to form zigbee network.
It stores all the critical information about the zigbee network including encryption keys.
• Routers are intermediate nodes which help in relaying data between devices.
• End devices are of two types reduced function devices and full function devices.
Reduced function devices can not relay data and will talk to their parent devices (routers/coordinator) to
perform relaying. On the other end, full function devices do the job of relaying.
Zigbee Mesh network uses full function devices.
Features of Zigbee Mesh Network
Following are the features of Zigbee mesh network.
| Specifications | Zigbee Mesh Support |
|---|---|
| IEEE Standard | 802.15.4-2003 defines PHY and MAC layers, upper layers are managed by zigbee alliance. |
| Frequecy of operation | Supports 2.4 GHz, 900 MHz and 868 MHz |
| Data rate | 250 Kbps, 40 Kbps, 20 Kbps in different bands |
| Sleep operation | Only end devices can sleep, coordinator and routers can not sleep so that new end devices can easily join the zigbee mesh network. |
| Coverage range | Most devices have range of abour 3.2 Km or less for each hop during transmission. |
| Encryption/Security | Uses AES encryption |
| Zigbee Frame payload size | 80bytes |
| Interoperability between different vendor devices | Possible as it is open standard |
| Addressing | Two types are supported MAC addressing of size 64 bit and network addressing of size 16 bit. |
Digi International has developed proprietary mesh protocol based wireless zigbee system known as "DigiMesh". This DigiMesh network has advantages and disadvantages over normal zigbee mesh network. The DigiMesh allows sleep funtionality on all the nodes. This will save battery and extends its life.
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Refer Z-Wave Basic Tutorial
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