Reducing traffic congestion in ZigBee networks: Experimental results

In this paper we propose and test, through experimentation on the field, a novel routing protocol for Zigbee networks. The proposed solution aims at reducing traffic congestion, causing delays, packets losses and unfair use of the energy resources of nodes in the network. The protocol exploits, at the network layer, the information related to medium access control losses, therefore collisions, to select the best path to reach the destination, accounting for both, connectivity and congestion on links. The protocol has been implemented on the MC1322x platform produced by Freescale and a comparison between the proposed protocol and Zigbee has been performed. Results demonstrate the significant improvement achieved in terms of packet loss rate and of nodes usage balance, the latter resulting in longer network lifetime.