Performance Analysis of ZigBee based Load
Control and Power Monitoring System
Deepak Karia§, Jaypal Baviskar*, Raj Makwana† and Niraj Panchal‡
Department of Electronics and Telecommunication
Sardar Patel Institute of Technology, Mumbai 400058, India
§ †
deepakckaria@gmail.com, *jay.22kar@gmail.com, rajmak88@gmail.com, nirajp101@gmail.com
Abstract—The use of wireless technology in home and industrial
automation systems is on the rise due to several advantages such as
cost reduction, easy placement and installation, easy extension,
comfort benefits, and mobile device connectivity. This paper
provides a comparative study of different wireless protocols such as
ZigBee (over IEEE 802.15.4) and Bluetooth (over IEEE 802.15.1)
for the selection of appropriate technology for Load Control. It also
describes a project model for remote controlling and monitoring of
various loads/appliances and a means of efficient power utilization
through real-time power level indicator with the help of a PC-based
GUI application. Further the analysis of various performance
parameters such as Latency, Received Signal Strength Indicator
(RSSI) value, Round-Trip Delay time (RTD), Network coexistence
of the ZigBee technology are evaluated for the implemented system.
Keywords- Automation, Wireless Technologies, Latency, RSSI, RTD,
Network coexistence, ZigBee, Power Monitoring.
I. INTRODUCTION
In the past few decades, various wireless technologies have
been revolutionized in terms of data rate, coverage area, power
consumption, scalability, capacity etc. The implementation of
any particular wireless technology depends on the above
mentioned metrics. In order to evaluate the system efficiency, its
performance parameters like latency, Received Signal Strength
Indicator (RSSI) value, Round trip delay (RTD) time and such
other parameter needs to be analyzed carefully. Regarding the
different wireless technologies, in [1], Jin-Shyan Lee et al. have
given a detailed comparative study of different short-range
wireless protocols viz. Bluetooth (defined by standard IEEE
802.15.1), UWB (defined by standard IEEE 802.15.3), ZigBee
(defined by standard IEEE 802.15.4) and Wi-Fi (defined by
standard IEEE 802.11a/b/g). Their behavior and main features in
terms of various attributes, including network topology, capacity,
quality of service support, security, and power consumption are
considered for the comparison.
Being an automation, control and monitoring system our
proposed model is implemented with ZigBee protocol. It consists
of two modules i.e. one Transmitter and one or more Receiver
modules. The transmitter module which is interfaced to the
controlling computer via serial connector consists of a Radio
Frequency (RF) device. The receiver modules placed at the
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c IEEE
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‡
remote end consists of RF device interfaced with a micro-
controller for controlling the loads via relays. The load
considered for our model can have their electrical ratings upto
230V (AC)/5A single phase. It can be resistive load such as
incandescent bulb (residential), load bank or any electric heating
load like Heater (Industrial). Even it can be an inductive load
like various electric motors, transformers, etc. The power
consumption can be estimated by measuring the electrical
parameters i.e. voltage and current which will be processed and
routed back to the RF device connected to the computer to
provide real-time monitoring [2].
This paper also describes the analysis of various performance
parameters of ZigBee such as Latency, Received Signal Strength
Indicator (RSSI) value, Round trip delay (RTD) time in
particular, related to our proposed model also the Network
coexistence and Robustness are discussed in general.
This paper is organized as follows. Section II provides the
comparative study of different wireless technologies. Further
details regarding the ZigBee protocol and network topologies are
discussed in Section III. Section IV describes our implemented
system, Section V deals with the analysis of various performance
parameters and the final Section VI presents the conclusion of
our paper.
II. COMPARATIVE STUDY
Table I below summarizes [3], [4] the key differences between
the three short-range wireless technologies. As shown below,
Wi-Fi provides higher data rates for multimedia access as
compared to both ZigBee and Bluetooth which provides lower
data transfer rates. ZigBee and Bluetooth are intended for
WPAN communication (about 10m), while Wi-Fi is designed for
WLAN (about 100m). Although, certain ZigBee chipsets can
reach a range of upto 100m.
Also, Table II below provides the comparison of the electrical
parameters for the different chipsets of BlueCore2 [3] from
Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR), XB24-B [4] from Digi
International Inc. and CX53111 [5] from Conexant (previous
Intersils Prism), while Fig. 1 indicates power consumption in
mW unit for each protocol.
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 TABLE I III. ZIGBEE PROTOCOL
COMPARISON OF THE BLUETOOTH, ZIGBEE, AND WI-FI
PROTOCOLS ZigBee is designed as a low rate (LR) wireless personal access
network (WPAN) to serve a wide range of applications in the
Standard Bluetooth ZigBee Wi-Fi industrial, residential and medical field. It requires low power
Application Focus Cable Monitoring and Web, Email, consumption, low cost and relaxed needs for data rate and
Replacement Control Video
Quality of Service (QoS). Various applications including home
Frequency Band 2.4 GHz 868/915 MHz; 2.4 GHz; 5 security systems, tele- metering, building automation networks,
2.4 GHz GHz
remote patient monitoring, industrial control networks and
Max Signal Rate 1 Mb/s 250 Kb/s 54 Mb/s several other can be benefited from the ZigBee protocol.
Nominal Range 10 m 10 - 100 m 100 m
Channel 1 MHz 0.3/0.6 MHz; 2 22 MHz A. ZigBee Protocol stack
Bandwidth MHz
Data protection 16-bit CRC 16-bit CRC 32-bit CRC In order to provide an efficient and standard based wireless
Max number of 8 more than 32 transfer of data ZigBee makes use of the IEEE 802.15.4 defined
cell nodes 65000 PHY and MAC layers (Refer Fig. 2). The ZigBee Alliance
specifies the Logical Network, Security and Application
TABLE II Software to complete the communication suite. Further the
ELECTRICAL PARAMETERS OF CHIPSETS FOR EACH PROTOCOL
interoperability and intercompatibility between similar products
Standard Bluetooth ZigBee Wi-Fi from different manufacturers are provided by ZigBee profiles
Chipset BlueCore2 XB24-B CX5311 defined in application layer [8].
VDD (volt) 1.8 3.3 3.3
TX (mA) 57 40 219
RX (mA) 47 40 215
Nominal TX power 0 to 10 -25 to 0 15 to 20
(dBm)
Battery Life (days) 1-7 100 - 1000 0.5 – 5

Since our proposed model is mainly concerned with the

controlling and monitoring purpose, the data rates provided by
Bluetooth and ZigBee are suitable for our application, whereas
Wi-Fi is basically designed for multimedia access. Also the
power consumption of Bluetooth and ZigBee is much less than
Wi-Fi. Along with low power consumption and the possibility to
increase the range of deployment, the network scalability offered
by ZigBee is large as compared to Bluetooth [6], [7]. The
comparison of above parameters leads us to select ZigBee as the
wireless interface technology for our proposed system.
Fig. 2. ZigBee Protocol Stack

The IEEE 802.15.4 operates over three frequency bands for

Fig. 1. Comparison of the power consumption for each protocol.
communications. ZigBee uses a Direct Sequence Spread
Spectrum (DSSS) radio signal in the 868 MHz band (Europe-
providing data rate of 20 kbps), 915 MHz band (North America-
providing date rate of 40 kbps) and the 2.4 GHz ISM band
(available worldwide with date rate of 250 kbps). The 2.4 GHz
ISM band is divided into sixteen channels having a channel
width of 3 MHz and centered 5 MHz from each other, giving a
2-MHz gap between pairs of channels. It uses the Offset
Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (OQPSK) modulation technique
with chip rate of 2000 kcps and 16-ary orthogonal symbols with
a symbol rate of 62.5 ksps [9]

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B. Network Topology for ZigBee
The network layer of ZigBee supports star, tree and mesh
topologies. The ZigBee Alliance’s core specification defines
ZigBee as an innovative, self-configuring, self-healing system of
redundant, and a very low-power nodes [10]. For mesh networks,
communication takes place between each two adjacent wireless
nodes as shown in Fig. 3 below. If any one of the node fails, the
information is automatically rerouted to allow devices to go on
communicating without the failure of communication. Nodes
using ZigBee protocol stack can communicate with each other
through building floors and can even walk through walls because
of their rerouting capability, thereby making it suitable to be
employed in office premises, campuses or factory units.
Fig. 3. Network Topology for ZigBee
The star topology being the most common network
configuration is useful when endpoints are closely clustered and
communicate with a single router node. This helps in reduction
of the battery consumption at client nodes. Similarly the tree
topology brings together several star networks with the data and
control messages being transferred using hierarchical routing
strategy.
IV. SYSTEM DESIGN
Fig. 4. Block diagram of proposed system
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Our designed system using ZigBee protocol is divided into
three parts viz. User End System (UES), Load End System
(LES) and Power Measurement Unit (PMU). Fig. 4 below shows
the block diagram of our designed system.
A. User End System (UES)
UES mainly consists of two parts: PC and ZigBee
transreceiver interfaced with PC via UART (Universal
Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter) port. Module of XBee
Series2 of Digi Inc. [4] is used as a part of ZigBee stack. The
XBee radios are programmed using X-CTU software in
Application Programming Interface (API) mode with the desired
baud rate [11]. Unlike the Transparent mode (AT mode), the API
mode unleashes the full power of the XBees and allows to
construct a real wireless network consisting of two or more
devices in the network. The module connected to PC is
configured as ZigBee Coordinator API. A Java based GUI
application is developed on PC which enables the user to control
the load remotely. Fig. 5 and Fig. 6 below show the GUI
windows. This application carries out operations such as
switching ON/OFF the load and indicating their status. It also
receives data from PMU through LES transreceiver and plots the
real-time power consumption graph.
Fig. 5. GUI for Appliance Control.
Fig. 6. GUI for Power Monitoring.
B. Load End System (LES)
Both UES and LES are wirelessly linked by ZigBee with
STAR topology. At LES, the ZigBee transceiver module is
interfaced with the Controller Board and is configured as ZigBee
Router API. Arduino controller board with ATmega328
microcontroller serves as MCU which is used to drive the relay
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or contactor to turn the load ON/OFF. The purpose of using
Arduino board is because it is an open-source electronics
prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and
software [12]. Also the microcontroller on the board (Atmel
ATmega328) can be programmed using the Arduino
programming language which is similar to the C programming
language. The LES transceiver Module receives the control
commands from the UES in the form of packages and forwards
those to the controller board. The controller manages the
different relays and the XBee radio reads its status and transmits
it back to the UES.
The relay card mainly consists of relays and the relay driving
circuitry. Relays are used to provide isolation between a control
circuit and load. In our project, the relay card is developed for
controlling four different loads. Fig. 7 shows the actual relay
card with Load no. 3 and 4 turned ON and its status reflected
back on the GUI.
Fig. 7. Relay Board with Appliance 3 and 4 turned ON.
C. Power Measurement Unit (PMU)
The PMU design configuration using the current sensor and
Operational Amplifier circuitry to measure power in single-phase
is illustrated in Fig. 8. The op-amp is used to amplify the IC
output into significant value and precision rectifier to rectify the
negative cycle of wave so that it will not damage the MCU.
Fig. 8. Block Diagram of PMU circuit design using WCS2705
Output of the op-amp is provided at the analog pin of MCU
which reads the electrical parameters and processes it further in
order to calculate the power and then forward it to the UES to
plot the power consumption graph in real time. The PMU
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consists of Current sensor IC WCS 2705 and LM358 which is
used for amplifier and Precision rectifier circuit with DC power
module. WCS 2705 is current sensor IC with the sensitivity of
255mV/A [13]. It has the capability of sensing both AC as well
as DC current. Here it is used to convert the desired load current
into corresponding equivalent output voltage which is further
read by the MCU and transmitted back to UES for power
plotting.
V. RESULT ANALYSIS OF THE SYSTEM
After the development of the ZigBee based wireless load
control system, the performance analysis of ZigBee protocol for
the above system was carried out and various performance
indicators of system such as Latency involved in operation, RSSI
value, Round trip time and Robustness were analysed.
A. Latency
It is defined as the average time taken by a message sent from
a source node to be correctly received by a sink node. Network
latency involves two types of latencies i.e. c-plane and u-plane
latency. Information regarding it is provided in the 3GPP
Literature [14].The u-plane latency is defined as the time
required for packet transmission from IP layer of the sender to
the IP layer of the receiver. It is also known as transport delay.
The c-plane latency is regarding the availability of first packet at
receiver reference point and it can be defined as the time taken
by the first packet to successfully reach at the receiver reference
point.
In a ZigBee based wireless system, it is the time required for
an end device to receive the transmitted packet from a ZigBee
Co-ordinator or vice versa. Typically for ZigBee protocol, the
latency involved is approximately 16 to 32 msec. The result
obtained for our system is depicted below in Fig 9.
Fig. 9. Measurement of latency between a sent and received packet.
While performing the analysis, a 32 byte packet is transmitted
between the two sensor nodes viz. ZigBee Coordinator (ZC) and
the ZigBee End Device (ZE) which are separated by distance of
5 meter (non line of sight). The Latency measured comes around
to be approximately 58msec.

B. Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI)
For communications, IEEE 802.15.4 radios provide
application with information about the incoming signal. The
RSSI value is the significant parameter while analyzing the
effect of distance on received signal strength. As the distance
increases the characteristics of Received Signal Strength (RSS)
[15] will decrease. The equation for RSSI is as follows:
RSSI = í (10nlog10 d + X)
where,
n = signal propagation constant, also named propagation
exponent.
d = distance from sender.
X = received signal strength at a distance of one meter.
From equation 1, when d=1meter, X= - (RSSI). For XBee S2
radio, RSSI value at 1 meter is -52 dBm. With these
considerations the graph is plotted which obeys the above
equation and same is compared with the practical RSSI values.
The RSSI can be directly read on X-CTU software from XBee
S2 modules which are configured as ZC and ZE in our proposed
model. The received signal strength is measured inside the
institute premises at different distances and the results for the
indoor experiment are shown in Fig. 10 below:
Fig. 10. Experimental and theoretical values of RSSI plotted in MATLAB.
C. Round trip Delay Time (RTD)
Round-trip delay (RTD), also called as round-trip time (RTT),
it is defined as the time required for a signal or packet to travel
from a particular source node via the path consisting other nodes
and back again to source node. The round trip delay time can be
up to a few milliseconds under ideal conditions between nearby
spaced sensor nodes. But under adverse conditions when the
sensor nodes are separated by a large distance it can be extended
to several seconds [16]. Let us consider the wireless sensor
network having two nodes i.e. ZC and ZE, as shown in Fig. 11.
As our system consists of two sensor nodes i.e. ZigBee
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Coordinator (ZC) and ZigBee End devise (ZE), there exists one
RTD path which is RTD -1=ZC-ZE-ZC.
Fig. 11. WSN consisting two sensor nodes with one path for RTD
(1)
The RTD time for RTD-1 path in above network is calculated by
using following equation
RTD-1 = t1 + t2 (2)
where, t1 is the delay time between the ZC and ZE respectively
and t2 is the delay time between the ZE and ZC respectively.
Similarly RTD time for the RTD path which is containing (N-1)
sensor nodes can be calculated with the following general
equation :
RTD-(n-1) = t1 + t2 +………..+ t(n-2)+ t (n-1) (3)
From Fig. 12, the observed value of RTD for our two node
system is 170 msec.
Fig. 12. Measurement of RTD on DSO.
D. Robustness
Reliable packet transfer is a vital aspect while transmission, in
case of data packet failure due to adverse environments
conditions or interference from nearby radios, a transmitter will
retransmit the packet to ensure successful delivery. It requires
additional power which in turn reduces the system efficiency.
Bluetooth uses the frequency hopping technique whereas ZigBee
implements a new technique which is known as ‘frequency
agility’ [17] and is included in the ZigBee PRO stack
specification. Frequency agility is the ultimate feature to mitigate
interference and it is the ability to move a ZigBee network to
another channel while operation is going on.
Whenever there is a requirement of a new channel across the
network, scanning for a clear spectrum should be done by a
network node and communication regarding this should be
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established with the ZigBee coordinator. But still, the
predetermined planning is required in order to avoid interference
from Wi-Fi as ZigBee gets easily blocked with a Wi-Fi access
point, so networks must be planned to avoid placing the two
technologies together. As Wi-Fi output power increases with
advances in technology, it will be increasingly difficult for a
ZigBee network to coexist.
E. Network coexistence
Coexistence can be defined as the ability of different
technologies to operate in the presence of other technology in the
same working environment. Emerging ubiquitous wireless
environments such as Wi-Fi, ZigBee have been gaining
popularity due to its various features. Interference between these
networks or technologies increases as more and more standards
emerges which uses the same communication band. In K. Shuaib
et al. [18] have provided the interference problems between
these standards and research regarding the coexistence of
ZigBee, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi is carried out. 2.4 GHz ISM band
is used by these three protocols. It was found that Wi-Fi has the
significant effect on ZigBee throughput; it causes 10% reduction
in throughput of ZigBee. But ZigBee interference has an
insignificant effect on Wi-Fi throughput. When the experiment
was repeated using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, significant reduction in
the throughputs of both the protocols was observed. Hence it can
be concluded that the use of the unlicensed band of wireless
spectrum i.e. 2.4 GHz ISM band by ZigBee causes interference
problems. Even devices such as microwave ovens and cordless
telephones can cause interference with ZigBee [19]. However,
ZigBee and Wi-Fi can exist together with less interference
problems than alternative technologies currently available.
VI. CONCLUSION
The proliferation of wireless technology has resulted in
providing features such as mobility, low maintenance along with
more security and compact systems. Based on the comparison of
different technical parameters between Bluetooth, ZigBee and
Wi-Fi, it is concluded that ZigBee is an efficient wireless
protocol in terms of power consumption, scalability and it also
provides a suitable data rate for controlling and monitoring
purpose. This paper describes an embedded wireless system
build using the ZigBee technology for remote load controlling
and power monitoring. Through the GUI display of real time
power consumption, the user can detect any variation in the
power consumption of the rated load. As a result the user can
check the load for any defect and repair/replace the load in order
to conserve energy. Also the performance of the implemented
system is analyzed on the basis of evaluation of various
performance parameters of ZigBee technology such as latency,
Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI), Round Trip Delay
(RTD) time. The results obtained practically are demonstrated
and are compared with theoretical values.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We are thankful to our institute Sardar Patel Institute of
Technology, Mumbai, India for providing the facilities to carry
out our research and project work.
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