Software application for analyzing ZigBee network performance in university courses

Abstract

© 2014 IEEE. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) and related technologies have the important impact nowadays. These technologies have variety of applications, and they are key enabling technologies of IoT (Internet of Things). ZigBee standard is the most common WSN technology. Its importance and expansion, as a widely used technology in many different areas, influence the importance of including ZigBee technology in courses at university. This paper presents the software application and related hardware platform designed to be used by the students to measure and analyze the performances of ZigBee network in design and pre-implementation process. The presented application can be used during the classes of Communication Systems and Computer Network Courses for ZigBee traffic and packet analyses. In addition, this application can be used for researching in the field of wireless sensor networks, ZigBee and other similar popular technologies such as Bluetooth Low Energy, IEEE 802.15.4, etc. The supporting platform for this application and experiment for its evaluation are also presented in this paper.