Integrating ZigBee lighting control into existing building automation systems

Intelligent building automation systems require a large number of sensors to increase spatial resolution in order to achieve fine-grained sensing and control. However, traditional building automation systems are wired networks that require a tremendous cabling cost. In addition, cables themselves are unwelcome in many living environments. ZigBee has become an emerging wireless networking technology in recent years, which meets easy installation and flexible deployment requirements. Also, ZigBee technology satisfies the market´s need for a cost-effective, standardsbased wireless network that provides a low power consumption, reliability and security. Therefore, ZigBee technology is very suitable for the networking of a building automation system. The goal of this paper was to develop a robust ZigBee wireless sensor network for building lighting control and to integrate the network into an existing building automation system. A Modbus-ZigBee gateway was developed to integrate these two different protocol systems. We tested our system in our testbed to verify the correctness of the gateway function and the network communication performance. The test results showed that ZigBee technology is feasible for use in building automation systems.