Technical Challenges for Wireless Instrument Networks - A Case Study with ZigBee

In this paper, the critical aspects of wireless instrument networks including energy efficiency, transmission range, radio frequency interference, packet error rate, and self healing capability have been discussed. An instrument network based on ZigBee has been set up for investigations. The network had a transmission range of up to 120 meters between the nodes under line-of-sight conditions. The range could be extended by multi-hop operations and utilizing self healing capabilities of the network. It is found that ZigBee based instrument networks are robust but susceptible to interference from other networks operating at the same ISM frequency band, such as WiFi and Bluetooth.