Performance analysis of ZigBee network topologies for underground space monitoring and communication systems
Graphical abstract
Introduction
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have recently been proposed for underground mine monitoring and communication to enhance safety and productivity and so as to reduce operational costs (Chehri et al., 2009, Bhattacharjee et al., 2012). Typically, the underground WSNs consist of a few to several hundred nodes between a surface gateway and specified sensor nodes in the underground levels. Each node can connect to one or more nodes in order to transmit data. In particular, the placement of the sensing nodes plays a very important role to allow for efficient transmission as well as providing maximum security through the network. It is inevitable for underground WSNs to perform at a high level of network efficiency with lower energy-consumption and the most cost-effective establishment and maintenance. Despite the progress of WSNs technologies, they still rely on infrastructure such as so-called sinks to transfer data from underground sensors to the management server at the surface (Bennett et al., 2010).
According to the experiments of developed ZigBee nodes on the radio propagation in underground environments (Moridi et al., 2015), the study focuses on the reliability of multi-hop data transmission between nodes in underground mines. ZigBee is standardized based on IEEE 802.15.4 protocol. This protocol has developed to realize the physical and multiple access control (MAC) layers for a low rate-wireless personal area network (LR-WPAN). In the following, PAN is technically defined as a LR-WPAN in an ad-hoc and self-organising network designed to serve a variety of applications especially in WSNs. ZigBee, based on IEEE 802.15.4 standard (Chandane et al., 2012), is comprised of PAN Coordinator, coordinator (full-function device) and end-device. A ZigBee PAN Coordinator forms the only root of the network. First, it creates the network, and then waits for automatic joining connections of other nodes. It enables all nodes to communicate within the network and stores data. Due to a limited communication range, intermediate coordinator nodes (full-function devices) are involved to transfer data between sensor nodes (the actual end-device) and the PAN Coordinator through multi-hop routing. Fig. 1 illustrates the network architecture of different ZigBee topologies. A full-function device can sense the environment, as well as communicate with the other nodes. An end-device is only capable of sensing and sending data to the PAN Coordinator or nearest coordinator node. The PAN Coordinator is usually AC powered, while routers and end-devices are typically battery powered.
ZigBee based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard has three main types of network topology for data transmission (the star, the cluster-tree and the peer-to-peer mesh) as illustrated in Fig. 1. As seen, end-device nodes may be more beneficial in the cluster-tree topologies considering energy saving during sleep times, while more full-function devices have to be employed in mesh topologies as they need to relay the data of nearby nodes.
A key factor to evaluate the efficiency of the WSNs performance is the routing protocol. The protocol provides routes for each node (Subramanya et al., 2011). Routing is the process of selecting paths within a network to send data from one node to the nearby nodes.
This study aims to evaluate ZigBee network performance and security in underground mines based on the link quality indication (LQI) for each received signal or packet using QualNet® 7.31(2014). For this purpose, we investigated an optimal arrangement of ZigBee nodes by creating various scenarios of mesh and cluster-tree configurations, and LQI-related metrics evaluation in mine tunnels. In the scenarios, all nodes including the Pan Coordinator, the full-function devices and the end-devices are assumed to remain stationary. Our procedure and methodology of an optimal arrangement of ZigBee nodes in underground mines is illustrated in Fig. 2. As star topology mostly suit for the home automation, we focus on the mesh and cluster-tree topologies in underground spaces to analyse the simulations based on the network performance metrics of throughput, packet delivery ratio, end-to-end delay, energy consumption and packet delivery security.
Section snippets
Related work
ZigBee network performance in the perspective of nodes positioning design has theoretically been developed by numerous research solutions (Singh et al., 2008, Guinard et al., 2011, Tian et al., 2012, Chatterjee et al., 2013) and proposed algorithms (Medhat et al., 2012, Yingxi et al., 2012, Huang et al., 2012). These solutions and algorithms improved the results and network performance of the WSNs. Since real tests within industry environments are faced with performance difficulty as well as
ZigBee network performance metrics
ZigBee network topologies for the analysis study of optimal nodes arrangement including the mesh (Peer-to-Peer) and cluster-tree which is challenged in industry applications are evaluated. Typically, the performance of network topologies is assessed on the basis of metrics that mainly consist of throughput, packet delivery ratio, end-to-end delay and energy consumption. In particular any topology involved with higher throughput and packet delivery ratio, and lower end-to-end delay and energy
Underground ZigBee network simulation setup and design
In this study, two ZigBee topologies under protocol IEEE 802.15.4 for varying traffic loads are evaluated to find optimum nodes arrangement using QualNet®7.3. QualNet is one of the network simulators that mimic the behaviour of a real network. A network simulation is a cost-effective method for developing the early stages of network centric systems. QualNet allows us to evaluate the basic behaviour of WSNs and test combinations of network features that are likely to work. It also provides a
Results and analysis
The simulation results can be evaluated through various performance metrics in both the mesh and cluster-tree topologies. By using similar traffic loads, an optimum ZigBee node arrangement is found for different underground mines. As mentioned above, the results are analysed based on the performance network metrics of throughput, packet delivery ratio, end-to-end delay and energy consumption (see Section 2 for the definitions).
Discussion
The performance investigations of different ZigBee topologies in underground spaces (mines) are summarised in Table 4. The simulation results show that the mesh (peer-to-peer) topology provides more reliable networking for the arrangement of ZigBee nodes in underground mine tunnels. This network topology has higher throughput, packet delivery ratio and network security. Although the cluster-tree topology is involved with lower end-to-end delay and energy consumption through the network, such
Conclusion
The selection of an appropriate network topology is crucial for the nodes arrangement of the industrial wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In this study, the performance of different network topologies for ZigBee-based WSNs was analysed for underground mine applications. Then scenarios of the ZigBee mesh and cluster-tree topologies under the IEEE 802.15.4 standard are investigated in the light of most important network metrics. Throughput, packet delivery ratio, end-to-end delay, and energy
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