Systematic Performance Monitoring and Examination of ZigBee Networks

This paper introduces a novel approach for a system-wide performance evaluation of Zigbee networks, in the context of large-scale lighting applications. It allows a comprehensive assessment of Zigbee networks through quantitative measurement of three key performance indicators: Reliability, Robustness, and Responsiveness. It proposes a systematic framework that injects different traffic scenarios into the network to get performance scores for each node in the network for every scenario. These scores are then passed through weighted scoring algorithms to obtain a network-level score for each performance indicator. Weighting factors are computed through the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) that prioritizes multiple criteria based on merit. The framework has been deployed and tested in real-life lighting systems, considering two luminaire network topologies: open-space and corridor layouts. The results show the use of the framework for overall acceptance testing as well as identifying low-performing nodes. Thus, this paper presents a distinctive methodology and a testbed to qualitatively monitor the performance of any Zigbee network deployed for lighting solutions based on user needs.