Performance Evaluation of ZigBee Network for Embedded Electricity Meters KUI LIU Masters' Degree Project Stockholm, Sweden Sep 2009 XR-EE-RT 2009:020 Abstract ZigBee is an emerging wireless technology for low-power, low data rate and short range communications between wireless nodes, which is showing a promising future. This research provides an overview of 802.15.4 and ZigBee standard. A test bench was created to evaluate the performance of ZigBee network for electricity meters applications. The results from the test show that ZigBee supports a large network size, a range of 75m within line of sight, a fairly large effective data rate that is enough for metering traffic and very low power consumption devices. These characteristics are very suitable for electricity meters applications where cost and power consumption is the major concern. 2 Acknowledgements My deepest gratitude goes first and foremost to my supervisor Jimmy Kjellsson, for his constant guidance and encouragement and also for the help throughout all phases of this thesis; And Henrik Sandberg, for his patient help and illuminating instruction through all the stages of writing the report. I also owe my sincere gratitude to Niclas Ericsson for the help of programming and wonderful advices. I would also like to thank Thomas Lindh, Viktoria Fodor from KTH and Tomas Lennvall for being very supportive during the thesis work. Thanks also to Karl Henrik Johansson, Jimmy Kjellsson and Tobias Gentzell for being part of the interview and offering me this great opportunity to work with this wonderful group. Last my thanks would go to my friends I made in Västerås, for all the good times spent together, and also for your being so nice and supportive all the time. 3 Table of Contents Abstract.................................................................................................................. 2 1. Project Introduction ........................................................................................... 9 1.1 Motivation ....................................................................................................... 9 1.2 Problem Formulation ....................................................................................... 10 1.3 Contributions ................................................................................................. 11 1.4 Outline .......................................................................................................... 11 2. Introduction to ZigBee and Z-Stack .................................................................. 12 2.1 ZigBee Introduction ........................................................................................ 12 2.1.1 General introduction ................................................................................. 12 2.1.2 Operational mode ..................................................................................... 14 2.1.3 ZigBee layer structure............................................................................... 18 2.1.4 ZigBee frame structure ............................................................................. 19 2.1.5 Comparison with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.......................................................... 19 2.2 Introduction to Z-Stack Development Kit ........................................................... 20 3. Packet Delay and Range Study ......................................................................... 24 3.1 Test implementations and preparations ............................................................. 24 3.1.1 Round trip time (RTT) calculation ............................................................... 24 3.1.2 Implementation........................................................................................ 25 3.1.3 Radio transmission range factors ................................................................ 27 3.2 Tests and result analysis ................................................................................. 29 3.2.1 Outdoor test ............................................................................................ 29 3.2.2 Indoor test .............................................................................................. 36 3.2.3 Interference test ...................................................................................... 40 4. Other Performance Metrics............................................................................... 42 4.1 Power Consumption Measurement .................................................................... 42 4.1.1 Polling without data transmission ............................................................... 42 4.1.2 Polling with data transmission .................................................................... 45 4.1.3 Join and rejoin process.............................................................................. 46 4.2 Throughput.................................................................................................... 47 4.3 Network Size and Addressing ........................................................................... 48 4.4 Security......................................................................................................... 50 5. Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 52 5.1 Conclusion of ZigBee Network Performance........................................................ 52 5.2 Comparison with Others’ Work ......................................................................... 52 5.3 Challenges and Future Work ............................................................................ 52 Appendix .............................................................................................................. 56 [A] Introduction to CSMA/CA ................................................................................. 56 [B] Full names of abbreviations in frame structure ................................................... 58 [C] BPSK and O-QPSK .......................................................................................... 59 [D] Application layer is further divided into three layers ............................................ 59 [E] Test environment photos and floor plans............................................................ 60 [F] Some test result not presented in the thesis....................................................... 62 4 List of Figures Figure 1.1-Electricity meters implemented in Suvarnabhumi International Airport, Bangkok Figure 1.2-Communication architecture of meters Figure 2.1- ZigBee operational bands Figure 2.2-Three kind of ZigBee network topologies Figure 2.3-ZC and ZED behavior in Beacon Enabled Mode Figure 2.4-ZC and ZED behavior in Non-Beacon Enabled Mode Figure 2.5- Superframe structure, each two are separated by a beacon Figure 2.6-ZigBee four-layer structure Figure 2.7-ZigBee Frame structure Figure 2.8-Range and Data Rate comparison of ZigBee, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi Figure 2.9-Chipcon SmartRF04EB Evaluation Board with CC2430EM Figure 2.10-Chipcon CC2430DB Development Board Figure 2.11-CC2430DB joystick Figure 3.1-A round trip of a packet Figure 3.2-Packet transmission process from ZC to ZR Figure 3.3-General test scenario Figure 3.4- Fresnel Zone Figure 3.5-Scenario 1, a single hop with a distance from 5m to 85m Figure 3.6-Scattergram of RTT with distances from 20m to 85m Figure 3.7-Zoom in version of scattergram of RTT for 20m in Figure 3. Figure 3.8-Histogram of RTT with a distance of 20m, 50m and 75m Figure 3.9-Accumulative curve of RTT for 50m, 75m and 85m Figure 3.10-Zoomed in accumulative curve of RTT for 50m, 75m and 85m Figure 3.11- Scenario 2 test with 1 hop, 2 hops and 3 hops Figure 3.12-Round trip time with 1 hop, 2 hops and 3 hops Figure 3.13-Scenario 3 test with different antennas Figure 3.14-Embedded PCB antenna Vs Titanis antenna Figure 3.15-Performance comparison with different obstacles between ZC and ZR Figure 3.16-Test scenario with microwave interference Figure 3.17-Test scenario with Bluetooth interference Figure 4.1-Power consumption measurement circuit Figure 4.2-Polling without data transmission Figure 4.3-Zoomed in of part 1 in Figure 4.2 Figure 4.4-Zoomed in of part 2 in Figure 4.2 Figure 4.5-Polling with data transmission Figure 4.6-Zoomed in version of Figure 4.5 Figure 4.7-Power consumption of join process Figure 4.8-Power consumption of rejoin process Figure 4.9-Maximum data rate in one way transmission (from ZC to ZR) 5 Figure 4.10-Maximum data rate in two-way transmission (both ZC and ZR are transmitting) Figure 4.11-Network address assignment example Figure 4.12-Address assignment verification by SNA Figure A.1-Unslotted CSMA/CA algorithm used in non-beacon enabled mode Figure A.2-Slotted CSMA/CA algorithm used in beacon enabled mode Figure B.1 ZigBee frame structure Figure D.1-ZigBee application layer structure Figure E.1-Outdoor test scenario and environment Figure E.2-Plan of floor C in ABB Corporate Research office building Figure E.3-Plan of floor B in ABB Corporate Research office building Figure E.4-Plan of floor A in ABB Corporate Research office building Figure E.5-Floor plan in Apartment Skalden 2 6 List of Tables Table 2.1-Comparison of three ISM frequency bands Table 2.2-General comparison of ZigBee, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi Table 3.1-Comparison of transmission condition with a distance from 20m to 85m Table 3.2-Received power with a distance from 10m to 85m Table 3.3-Round trip time with 1 hop, 2 hops and 3 hops Table 3.4-Comparison