Key Technologies Analysis Of ZigBee Network Layer

Hu Guozhen
Huangshi Institute of Technology, Huangshi Hubei 435003, China
E-mail:hugz123@126.com

Abstract--In order to expand the application of ZigBee network management entity NE and data management
wireless communication based on IEEE802.15.4, network entities (DE).
layer of ZigBee protocol stack is developed. After
introduction of the ZigBee protocol stack model, key
technologies of network layer and corresponding realization
method are proposed. The key technology of network layer
includes wireless network management, address distribution
and routing. Finally, hardware and software development
platform of ZigBee protocol stack and testing method are
presented.

Keywords--ZigBee; Network layer; Network management;

Address distribution; Routing

I. INTRODUCTION
The IEEE 802.15.4 standard was approved in 2003
as a media access control (MAC) and physical (PHY)
layer standard for low data rate, low power, and low cost
wireless personal area networks (WPANs) . This PHY
and MAC layer standard defined a 250kb/s direct
sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) radio operating in the
2.4GHz unlicensed band with lower bit-rate alternatives
in the 868 MHz and 900 MHz bands. This standard now
enjoys extensive silicon support, primarily in the 2.4GHz
band. On top of this PHY and MAC layer standard,
several proprietary and standards-based sensor network
systems emerged. The one with the most vendor and
end-product support is the ZigBee standard proposed by
ZigBee Alliance[1]-[4].
The ZigBee Alliance is a rapidly growing association
of companies working together to enable reliable,
cost-effective, low power, wirelessly networked
monitoring and control applications [2]. The ZigBee
specifications were ratified in December 2004 and the
ZigBee network specification is one of the first standards
for ad hoc and sensor networks.
This paper addresses one of the most important
research topics on ZigBee networks and present the
realization of ZigBee network layer NWK . Section II
introduces the whole constitute of ZigBee protocol stack
model. Section III illustrates the key technologies of
Zigbee network layer. The software and hardware
platform are presented in Section IV and Section V, which
are used to realize and test the proposed arithmetic.
II. ZIGBEE PROTOCOL STACK MODEL
For industrial applications, ZigBee communication
protocol stack was developed base on IEEE802.15.4.
Fig.1. shows ZigBee communication protocol model. The
model is made up of PHY, MAC, NWK, APS and APL
layer. And every layer is connected through service access
Entry Point (SAP). Every layer is divided into two parts,
c
978-1-4244-6349-7/10/$26.00 2010 IEEE V7-560
Fig.1. ZigBee communication protocol stack
Physical layer (PHY) is responsible for data
modulation, sending and receiving data. Media Access
Control layer (MAC) is responsible for data framing,
frame detection, medium access and error control. Data
link layer protocols need to fully consider the diversity of
real-time communication information, sleep and other
energy-saving mechanism to meet the stringent reliability,
real-time and energy efficiency requirements. Network
layer (NWK) is responsible for system, network
formation, maintenance and the provision of routing
functions, network architecture, resource-constrained,
node mobility, etc. APS were made on the network
development for a higher-layer requirement. Application
support sub-layer (APS) completes network time
synchronization, node localization, and provides
user-oriented applications, collaborative applications
interfaces. And the application layer (APL) achieves
different network communication between devices,
information and service of devices. This paper focus on
the related key technologies of ZigBee network layer [1]
[2].
III. KEY TECHONOLGIES OF ZIGBEE
NETWORK LAYER
A. Type of wireless device
ZigBee defines two kinds of functional devices:
full-function devices (FFD), reduced function device
(RFD). FFD supports different kind of topology, which
mainly used as a network coordinator and routers that
could communicate with other device. RFD only supports
star topology, and can not be used as a network
coordinator. RFD is usually used in embedded field
devices [5].
FFD can communicate with RFD or other FFD. But
RFD can only communicate with FFD and can not
communicate with other RFD. RFD is mainly used for
simple control applications such as light switches, passive
infrared sensors, which only need less transmitted data
and resources and communication resources.
B. Wireless network management
Network management in wireless network included
network formation and network maintenance, which was
different from traditional gateway.
a. Network formation
The proposed wireless network protocol follows the
standard of ZigBee specification. Fig.2 shows the
formation of a wireless network. Firstly, a FFD was
initialized to be a coordinator. And then in order to search
an appropriate channel, the FFD performed a ED(energy
detect ) and channel scanning until getting an appropriate
channel .After getting a appropriate channel, the FFD
allocated this new network a new PANID (personal area
network identifier ) which should be unique in this
channel. In order to distinguish with other devices, the
FFD chose 0x0000 as own 16-bit network address. And
then through sending a set of primitives between the
layers of ZigBee protocol stack, a new wireless network
was formed.
b. Network Maintenance
The function of Network maintenance is to manage
the devices of wireless network. A FFD should possess
the ability to join a device to the network as well as the
ability to request a device to leave the network.
When wireless network was formed, network
management entity set MAC layer connection permission
signal to determine whether to allow other devices to join
the network or not.
Fig.2. Flow chart of formation of wireless network
Usually a device can join a wireless network through
joint joining or direct joining method. In this design, a
direct joining method was adopted. This method required
the device sending a beacon frame when devices
requested to join a network. When FFD received the
beacon frame coming from a device, if the device was an
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authorized device, it allocated the device a unique short
address and then added this device to address table. At the
same time the devices in the wireless network could
request to leave the network through sending a disconnect
request primitive. The FFD responded the request and
then deleted this device’s message in neighbor table.
C. Address allocation
In a wireless network, any network node can attain a
unique 64-bit IEEE address (long address) and a 16-bit
short address (short address), which allocated before the
transmission of information. The network coordinator
was assigned 0x00 as its short address, 0 as its network
depth (Depth). And the network depth of its son device is
one. In this design, in order to minimize network traffic,
simplify the device structure and reduce the cost and
power consumption of devices, a distributed address
allocation scheme was adopted in this paper.
In the proposed scheme short message was decided
by three parameters: the maximum depth of the network
(nwkMaxDepth) Lm, the number of sub-devices
(nwkMaxChildren) Cm that each of the parent device can
connect, the number of sub-router (nwkMaxRouters) Rm
that each router can connect. The address offset of a
parent device can assign according to equation (1).
1 + Cm − Rm − Cm • RmLm − d −1
Addr (d ) =
1 − Rm 1
If the address of some device was assigned as 0, then
this device does not have the ability to link child device,
and this device can only serve as a wireless network field
device. If the device was assigned an address which was
greater than 0, it has the ability to link child device and
can allocate address to child devices. According to the
above address assignment rules, the devices address
allocation must be completed allocation before system
design. Fig.3. shows an example of address allocation
through a three-tier structure to verify the address
allocation rules.
Fig.3. Network address allocation
In Fig.3, the largest number of sub-device Cm is
equal to 4; the largest number of routes device Rm is
equal to 2; the network maximum depth Lm is equal to 2.
When the d (Depth) = 0, the address offset Addr (0) that
network coordinator can assigned is 5; When the d (Depth)
= 1, the address offset Addr (1) that routing device
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 Table 1 Network address allocation
Type Network Router
coordinator
DeviceID 0 1 2 1
Address 00 01 06 02
(router) can assigned is 1; When the d (Depth) = 2, the
address offset Addr (1) is equal to 0. According to
formula (1), address of network devices can be shown in
Table 1 as an example.
Information interchange of different devices depends
on devices address, either long address or short address.
In order to extend battery life, if the device is in the same
network, it is better to adopt short address in data
transmission. These not only can reduce the size of the
packet, but also can shorten the data transmission time
among the devices and reduce power consumption,
extend battery life. If the device is in the different sub-net,
PANID and short address can be adopted synchronously.
D. Routing
Routing function of ZigBee network layer includes
the best effective routing, maintenance of routing tables,
the upper route selection and route repair. While routing
was based on the routing cost, the routing cost is the
summation of multi-hop routing link cost.
The link cost can be get from link quality indication
(LQI) of each frame which was recorded in MAC layer
and PHY layer based on IEEE802.15.4. According to the
size of link cost of routing, the device of low link cost can
be selected as a relay device.
An effective algorithm must be provided in network
layer. A basic route algorithm has been realized in this
paper. Firstly, the routing device checks routing table
entry corresponding to the destination address, and then
searches the next hop address to send data frames. If there
is no routing table entry corresponding to the destination
address, the routing sub-domain of network layer header
control domain must be checked. If the selected
sub-domain is set to 1, the selection of routing address
will be based on link cost routing algorithm. If the
selected sub-domain is set to 0, then the method of
hierarchical routing should be adopted.
IV. HARDWARE PLATFORM OF ZIGBEE
PROTOCOL STACK
As shown in Fig.4, a communication module was
designed to develop ZigBee protocol stack. This module
adopted CC2430 as microcontroller unit (MCU), which
was developed by Chipcon based on IEEE
802.15.4.CC2430 includes a 2.4GHz RF transceiver and a
high-performance 8051 controller. This chip can meet
with low-cost and low power requirements [6]-[8].
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Field device
2 3 4 5 6 7
03 04 05 07 08 09
Fig.4. ZigBee communication module prototype
The wireless module was mainly consisted of
CC2430 chip and corresponding impedance matching
circuit. Chip peripheral circuits included crystal oscillator
clock circuitry, RF input / output matching circuitry and
microcontroller interface circuit. Passive crystal of
32MHz was used to provide clock for internal
microprocessors, while 32.768KHz crystal provided clock
source for the sleep mode timer. Its load capacitance
value was about 22pF. RF input / output matching circuits
required precise inductance and capacitance to match the
chip's RF input / output impedance (about 50Ω) and
provide DC bias for chip internal power amplifier and
low-noise amplifier.
V. METHOD OF PEFOREMANCE TEST
In order to test the consistent of data packet,
C51RF-3-F wireless network analyzer was used to
capture the wireless data packets. Sketch map of wireless
communication module test was shown in Fig.5.
C51RF-3-F protocol analyzer is based on the latest
802.15.4/ZigBee technology, which can be used to
decode the ZigBee protocol and thus speed up the
debugging process. TI's Packet Sniffer for CC2430
protocol analysis software was also used to assistant
analysis, which can display the information from PHY
layer and MAC layer to NWK layer and associated
sub-domain information.
Fig.5 Sketch map of wireless communication module test
As shown in Fig.6, this data packet captured by
C51RF-3-F indicated the result of address allocation. And
NWK layer data message was presented in Fig.7, which
included Frame control field, Serial number, Destination
address, Source address and NWK payload.
Fig.7. Address allocation
Fig.8. NWK data message.
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 VI. CONCULUSION
ZigBee standard provides network, security, and
application services, which work on media access control
layer (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) based on IEEE
802.15.4 standards. This paper introduced the related key
technologies of ZigBee network layer and presented
corresponding design method. The proposed network
layer was according with ZigBee standard ruled by
ZigBee Alliance and ensured scalability and self
-restorative of wireless network.

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