外文翻译---ZigBee：无线技术,低功耗传感器网络

ZigBee: Wireless Technology for

Low-Power Sensor Networks

Gary Legg

5/6/2004 12:00 AM EDT

Technologists have never had trouble coming up with potential applications for wireless sensors. In a home security system, for example, wireless sensors would be much easier to install than sensors that need wiring. The same is true in industrial environments, where wiring typically accounts for 80% of the cost of sensor installations. And then there are applications for sensors where wiring isn't practical or even possible.

The problem, though, is that most wireless sensors use too much power, which means that their batteries either have to be very large or get changed far too often. Add to that some skepticism about the reliability of sensor data that's sent through the air, and wireless sensors simply haven't looked very appealing.

A low-power wireless technology called ZigBee is rewriting the wireless sensor equation, however. A secure network technology that rides on top of the recently ratified IEEE 802.15.4 radio standard (Figure 1), ZigBee promises to put wireless sensors in everything from factory automation systems to home security systems to consumer electronics. In conjunction with 802.15.4, ZigBee offers battery life of up to several years for common small batteries. ZigBee devices are also expected to be cheap, eventually selling for less than $3 per node by some estimates. With prices that low, they should be a natural fit even in household products like wireless light switches, wireless thermostats, and smoke detectors.

Figure 1: ZigBee adds network, security, and

application-services layers to the PHY and MAC layers of the

IEEE 811.15.4 radio

Although no formal specification for ZigBee yet exists (approval by the ZigBee Alliance, a trade group, should come late this year), the outlook for ZigBee appears bright. Technology research firm In-Stat/MDR, in what it calls a "cautious aggressive" forecast, predicts that sales of 802.15.4 nodes and chipsets will increase from essentially zero today to 165 million units by 2010. Not all of these units will be coupled with ZigBee, but most probably will be. Research firm ON World predicts shipments of 465 million wireless sensor RF modules by 2010, with 77% of them being ZigBee-related.

In a sense, ZigBee's bright future is largely due to its low data rates—20 kbps to 250 kbps, depending on the frequency band used (Figure 2)—compared to a nominal 1 Mbps for Bluetooth and 54 Mbps for Wi-Fi's 802.11g technology. But ZigBee won't be sending email and large documents, as Wi-Fi does, or documents and audio, as Bluetooth does. For sending sensor readings, which are typically a few tens of bytes, high bandwidth isn't necessary, and ZigBee's low bandwidth helps it fulfill its goals of low power, low cost, and robustness.

Figure 2: ZigBee's data rates range from 20 kbps to 250

kbps, depending on the frequency used

Because of ZigBee applications' low bandwidth requirements, a ZigBee node can sleep most of the time, thus saving battery power, and then wake up, send data quickly, and go back to sleep. And, because ZigBee can transition from sleep mode to active mode in 15 msec or less, even a sleeping node can achieve suitably low latency. Someone flipping a ZigBee-enabled wireless light switch, for example, would not be aware of a wake-up delay before the light turns on. In contrast, wake-up delays for Bluetooth are typically around three seconds.