Mobility-Robust Tree Construction in ZigBee Wireless Networks

Zigbee, formalized by the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, is a specification for wireless personal area networks with low power, low cost, and a low data rate. In Zigbee, tree topology is commonly practiced to form wireless sensor networks and perform data delivery applications. In Zigbee wireless applications, data de livery failures occur constantly due to the node movements and topology changes of networks. To tackle the topology changes, conventional route reconstruction often involves huge resource consumption. In this paper, we utilize the regularity of mobility patterns to reduce the frequency of route reconstructions and achieve higher efficiency in sending data to mobile nodes. To increase the data delivery ratio, we introduce the metric of mobility-robustness in a tree topology, and propose tree construction with an objective to maximize the mobility-robustness of the constructed tree. We develop an efficient algorithm for effective tree construction. The effectiveness of network topologies constructed using this mobility-robustness metric is demonstrated by NS2 simulations against a real-world scenario.