An innovative scheme for increasing connectivity and life of ZigBee networks

ZigBee networks based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard are designed for wireless sensor and control networks with low-cost, low-power consumption, and low-data rate. To join in a ZigBee network with the tree topology, the hardware requirement of a device is simple and low threshold. However, a device may become an isolated node due to constraints of configuration parameters in the ZigBee network. To decrease isolated nodes, we propose an approach called Enhanced Connectivity Scheme for the ZigBee network. This scheme can efficiently reconstruct parts of the network to let more devices join, and hence increase the join ratio. Experimental results show that our method can efficiently improve the connectivity of ZigBee networks. In this paper, we also propose a swapping method to extend the life of the ZigBee network. The objective of swapping is to balance the energy consumption of the nodes. Experimental results show that the swapping scheme can increase the life of the network compared to the ZigBee standard operation by 50%. We provide an innovative solution for increasing connectivity and life of the network to ZigBee designs.