2014 6th International Conference on CSIT

ISBN:987-1-4799-3999-2

Wireless Sensors Network and Acknowledgement

Technique Based ZigBee System
Firas S. Al-Sharbaty
Electrical Engineering
Mosul University
Mosul-Iraq
firassharbaty@yahoo.com
Abstract The attractive features of wireless sensors based
ZigBee and IEEE 802.15.4 standard such low cost, flexibility,
scalability, and multiple usages contribute to spread it in many
trends. The network of wireless sensors which is to be considered
in this research deals with fixed and mobile wireless sensors and
treated with mesh and tree topologies. This paper takes up the
effect of Acknowledgement technique to search for better
throughput and end to end delay of wireless sensors network.
The results show that the acknowledgement technique has
different effects on the performance of the network depending on
the type of topology and state of sensors (fixed or mobile). The
usage of Acknowledgement gives better performance in terms of
throughput and end to end delay for tree topology with mobile
stations, and mesh topology with fixed stations.
Keywords; 802.15.4 standard; Acknowledgement; Mesh;
Tree; ZigBee.

I.

INTRODUCTION

In recent times, wireless sensors have gained grassroots in

many fields ( like medical, security, industrial, military,
geological, and etc) due to adopt on the power of a battery for
long time in addition to the feature of scalability. On the other
side, the variety applications of wireless sensors have different
requirements such reliable / unreliable data delivery or fixed/
mobile sensors. Consequently, there is fixture to employment
the techniques which are supported these sensors in order to
buttress the packets delivering to guarantee the proper
extradited.
The sparky countenance of wireless sensors leads to ZigBee
nativity. The architecture from protocol stack point of view,
ZigBee is built on the top of IEEE 802.15.4 standard in order
to provide low data rate and low duty cycle for short coverage
to wireless sensors network (WSN)[1]. The combination of
IEEE 802.15.4 standard and ZigBee architecture deals with
the four layers of wireless sensors protocol stack.
The IEEE 802.15.4 is a standard which supports low power
devices of wireless personal area network (WPAN), it cares
with physical layer to be responsible for transmission of data,
radio channel, and modulation [2]. In addition to physical
layer, MAC layer is under validity of IEEE 802.15.4 standard,
it submits two classes of operational modes: Beacon-enabled
mode and Non Beacon-enabled mode [3]. In beacon-enabled
mode, there is a beacon frame which is periodically generated

978-1-4799-3999-2/14/$31.002014 IEEE

by the personal area network (PAN) coordinator to

synchronize sensors that are associated with it. This mode
gives the advantage of time guarantee to data delivery. On the
other side, the sensors can directly send their data without
synchronizing by using carrier sense multiple access/ collision
avoidance (CSAM/CA) mechanism in the case of non-beacon
enabled mode. Consequently, the scalability and selforganization can submit by this mode [2]. This protocol is
flexible to support wide range of applications that need to nonreal or real time guarantees. To define a global field for
wireless sensors, some companies are moved to make alliance
aims to organize the applications profiles of wireless sensors.
This alliance of companies is called ZigBee alliance, it deals
with network and application layers of protocol stack [4]. The
interoperability and complementarity between IEEE 802.15.4
standard and zigbee architecture provide the appropriate
environment for wireless sensors network.
The Acknowledgement technique (ack) is an optional
feature to enhance the performance of ZigBee system. This
technique is using a special type of frame format with small
size as compared with the original frame format of the packet
where the receiver sends the ack frame after receiving the
packet to report the transmitter that the rights receive is done
[2].
A. Related Works
Reference [5] submitted performance evaluation using
OPNET to small tree topology which was consisted of four
wireless sensors associated with one coordinator supported by
acknowledgement. It dealt with fixed stations. It had
concluded that Zigbee protocol gives less end to end delay.
The performance of wireless sensors are also given in [6] but
for three types of topologies: star, tree, and mesh. In general, it
presented the wireless network as fixed stations. It focused on
tree topology where it implemented three scenarios included
one and two coordinators.
The mobility of ZigBee sensors was investigated in [7] for
the cases of mesh and tree topologies. It introduced an initial
implementation of the ZigBee network layer in Network
Simulator (NS-2) and it offered some statistics such delivery
ratio and routing overhead.
S. W. Nourildean in [8] simulated ZigBee system using
OPNET modeler version fourteen to obtain the results in order

Published by the IEEE Computer Society

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2014 6th International Conference on CSIT

ISBN:987-1-4799-3999-2

to study the performance of the system in terms of tree routing

and mesh routing without introduced the acknowledgement
technique. It showed that tree routing was more suitable for
wireless sensors network than the mesh routing and mobility
of end device was better with multiple coordinator system.
B. Scope and Organization
The present investigation deals with wireless sensors based
ZigBee, it aims to study the impact of acknowledgement
technique on throughput and end to end delay of the wireless
sensors network in cases of fixed and mobile ZigBee sensors
for mesh and tree topologies using OPNET modeler
version14.5 to search for better system performance.
The structure of this paper consists of five sections. This
section showed Introduction and Related Works. Section Two
gives detailed explanation for ZigBee and 802.15.4 standard
as well as acknowledgement technique. Section Three submits
a complete description of the proposed simulation model.
Section Four gives results in addition to discussions of results.
Finally, Section Five presents the conclusions obtained from
this paper.
II.

THEORY

A. Protocol Stack
Wireless sensors based zigbee build on two aspects of
stack construction: IEEE 802.15.4 standard and zigbee
protocol. Generally, the stack of wireless sensors includes four
layers. These layers are physical layer, MAC layer, network
layer, and application layer. 802.15.4 Standard deals with
physical and mac layer while zigbee protocol treats with
network and application layer [2], see Fig. 1.
Zigbee
Protocol

Application layer
Network layer
Mac layer
Physical layer

802.15.4
Standard

Fig.1. Protocol stack of ZigBee system.

Physical layer contacts the physical medium, it is

responsible for many functions such transmission and
receiving the bits, channel frequency, and channel accessing.
Mac layer forms a bridge between 802.15.4 standard and
zigbee protocol. It deals with CSMA/CA, synchronization,
beacons, channel access managing, acknowledgement
mechanism as well as PAN association and disassociation
[1][3].
As mentioned before, network layer and application layer
are under responsible of zigbee protocol, network layer is
devoted to configure the network, routing and complete the
joining. Furthermore, it applies the security and assigns the
addresses. Application layer is the upper layer of protocol

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stack which has many functions. The main responsibility of

this layer are 64 bits addressing, complete security tasks,
zigbee device object (ZDO) and other functions [8].
It is important to note that, there is two types of addressing
in wireless sensors based zigbee: 16 bits and 64 bits
addressing. The 16 bits addressing, it is local addressing which
assigns by the parent node to children nodes [3]. The 64 bits
addressing, it is extended address allocated by IEEE [2]. The
aim of these types of addressing is to provide unique
addressing for each device.
B. ZigBee Devices
There are three types of devices in zigbee network:
coordinator, router, and end device. The Coordinator is the top
level device of zigbee network from the capability point of
view; it is the root of the network which configures the
network by assigning special identification called personal
area network identification (PAN ID) and selecting the
parameters of a network [2][3].
The router is the second level device of zigbee devices
capability; it transmits and receives the data as well as to work
as intermediate device where has routing capability by
receiving and retransmitting the packets to nominal paths [1].
The poor capability device, End device is the last types of
devices. It is a kid device depending on parent devices like
coordinator or router to provide the coverage and associated
with it. End device can be defined as low power device and
have no routing capability.
C. ZigBee Network Topologies
Zigbee network supports different kinds of topologies:
star, tree, and mesh topologies. Star topology represents the
centralized system where the coordinator controls on the
network. There is always one way communication toward the
coordinator [5]. The end devices can not directly
communicate. In this type of topology there is no need to
routers because the router will work as end device, see Fig. 2.
Coordinator
=C

Router=
R

End
device=ED

ED
ED

ED

ED

Fig. 2. Star topology of ZigBee system.

2014 6th International Conference on CSIT

ISBN:987-1-4799-3999-2

Mesh topology gives large validities to end device. It is

possible to communicate directly among end devices. There
are many possible paths for packets to reach to desire
destination. Hence, the route of the packet from a source to a
destination is created on demand and can be modified where
the packet passes by hoping to reach the distention. The
features of router are activated in this type of topology [7].
Mesh topology has features of self-healing and self-organizing
but it may have complex routing algorithm [6], see Fig. 3.
ED

ED
C

ED
R

ED

ED

D. Acknowledgement Technique (Ack)

It is a technique that is optionally used in wireless sensors
to add the reliability to transmission process. This process
happens between transmitter and receiver where the
transmitter requests ack when it is transmitting the packet to
receive side then the receiver will send ack to notify the
transmitter that receiving is done. If the packet is not received
by the receiver, the transmitter will not receive ack. Therefore
the transmitter will retransmit the packet [2][9]. The ack
process can obtain in the following cases as shown in Fig. 5:
The data is transferred to/from a coordinator from/to router.
The data is transferred to/from a coordinator from/to end
device.
The data is transferred to/from a router or end device from/to
router or end device.
Router or
End device

Coordinator

Router or
End device

Coordinator

ED

Tree topology is a topology which contains all types

of zigbee devices (coordinator, router, and end device) like
mesh topology. Tree topology is a special type of mesh
topology where there is no condition to redirect the packets to
coordinator before reaching to required distention. Generally,
the coordinator acts as root of the network and can work
beside the router as parent nodes. The parent devices can rule
the children nodes. When a child node transmits any packet,
this packet will pass through parent node to reach the final
destination [7]. Tree topology has the features of simple
routing algorithm and supports power saving. This is related to
presence one way only to packets between any pair of devices
through the nominal branch of the tree [2]. It is needed to low
power consumption and low overhead. On the other hand,
there is negative trend for this type representing with weak
utilization for bandwidth, see Fig. 4.
C

ED
ED

Ack

Data

Ack

Fig. 5a. Data transfer with acknowledgement

between the coordinator and the devices.

Router or
End device

R
ED

Ack
(mandatory)

Router or
End device

Data request

Data

Fig. 3. Mesh topology of ZigBee system.

ED

Fig. 4. Tree topology of ZigBee system.

ED

Data

Ack

Fig. 5b. Data transfer with acknowledgement

between the devices.

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2014 6th International Conference on CSIT

In the first case of ack, router or end device is transferred

packet to coordinator and it requests ack from coordinator,
s
This case is
then coordinator will send ack to other side.
similar to the third case.
The second case of ack describes the trannsferring data from
coordinator to router or end device. Firstly,, the router or end
device requests the data from coordinatorr to indicate it is
active and ready to receive the data, and theen the coordinator
sends ack before sending the data to other side [2]. The ack
from receiving side to coordinator is optionnal. It is worth to
observe that the standard of 802.15.4 is not circumscribed the
waiting time for receiving the ack and is not specified the
number of retransmitting.

ISBN:987-1-4799-3999-2

The positions of the nodes are randomly chosen as

shown in Fig. 7.
The destination of thhe transmitting packets of the
nodes is chosen to be random.
r
The model includes eiight scenarios, see Table 1.

E. Frame Structure of Acknowledgemeent

The frame of ack is built in MAC layer then it transferred
to physical layer for the purpose of transmittting. Fig.6. shows
the frame structure of ack in wireless sensorr based ZigBee. It
is the simplest form of structure in MAC layer, it contains
MAC header and MAC trailer (footer) withoout the payload of
MAC because there is no information too carry while the
normal frame format of MAC contains paylooad. MAC header
includes frame control and sequence numberr which contains a
group of bits control, while MAC trailer deals with frame
checksum sequence (FCS) which is used foor error detection.
The MAC frame is encapsulated inside the frame of physical
layer. The physical layer frame starts withh synchronization
header (SHR) followed by start of frame deelimiter to specify
the end of this part. The second part of the frame is physical
header (PHR) which contains header lengthh and reserved bit.
The last part is physical payload [2].

Fig. 7. The distributionn of ZigBee network nodes.

TABLE 1. The descriptiion of the model scenarios.

Fig. 6. The format of acknowledgment frame

f
[2].

RIPTION
III.SIMULATION MODEL DESCR
The simulation model of wireless sensorrs based ZigBee is
implemented under the platform of OPNET
T Modeler version
14.5. The network of wireless sensors is based on the
following assumptions:

The network includes sixteen noddes, consisting of

one coordinator, three routers, and twelve end
devices.

78

Description
Node
Topology
ACK
State

No.

Scenario Nam
me

Fixed_tree_no_acck

TREE

fixed

no

Fixed_tree_ackk

TREE

fixed

yes

Mobile_tree_no_aack

TREE

mobile

no

Mobile_tree_ackk

TREE

mobile

yes

Fixed_mesh_no_aack

MESH

fixed

no

Fixed_mesh_ackk

MESH

fixed

yes

No_ack

MESH

mobile

no

Ack_retrans_fivee

MESH

mobile

yes

The statistics of exchaanging packets for all scenarios

are shown in Table 2.
The complete assumpttions are illustrated in Table 3.
The model dealt withh fixed and mobile stations. In
case of mobile statioons and during simulation, the
OPNET will randomly select a destination inside the
dimensions of the wirreless sensors network, and then
the node will move tooward it. It is worth to mention
that the mobility is appplied for all nodes of wireless

2014 6th International Conference on CSIT

ISBN:987-1-4799-3999-2

sensors network except Coordinator. In other words,

the coordinator is always fixed.
The same assumptions of mobility are chosen to the
cases of mesh and tree topologies.
TABLE 2. Packets statistics of ZigBee system.

S.
No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

Packets
Sent

Packets
Received

Packet
Dropped

Packet
Outstanding

3360
3360
3360
3360
3360
3360
3360
3360

3335
3359
3173
3360
3180
3359
3236
3360

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

25
1
187
0
180
1
124
0

before ack technique employment is slightly less than the

delay of same network after employment the technique of ack
then the delay of the two cases is so close. It is observed from
Fig. 8. that the delay related to ack is nearly constant and
almost same the delay of the network without ack at the steady
state of the network (about 30 m sec). This is related to short
distance between sensors in case of mesh topology. Therefore,
the operation of receiving is fulfilled smoothly.

B. End to End Delay of Mesh Topology with Mobile

ZigBee Sensors
Fig. 9. explains the delay of wireless sensors network in
case of mobile sensors.
0.035

0.03

TABLE 3. Model assumptions.

Description

No. of Nodes (overall)

16

No. of Coordinator

No.of Routers

No.of End Devices

12

Network Topology

Tree, Mesh

Nodes State

Fixed, Random
Mobile

Transmission Bands

Worldwide

Waiting Time for ack

(sec)

0.05

Packet Size

1024

Simulation Time (sec)

0.02
fixed mesh no ack
fixed mesh ack
0.015

0.01

0.005

0.035

0.03

1800

0.025

A. End to End Delay of Mesh Topology with Fixed

ZigBee Sensors
Fig. 8. shows the end to end delay for the wireless sensors
network in the case of mesh topology. The end to end delay
can be defined as the interval time between prepared the
packet to transmit at transmitter station until received this
packet at receiver station, it is measured per second. It can be
seen that, the end to end delay of wireless sensors network

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

1800

Fig. 8. The delay of mesh topology in case of fixed stations without and
with ack.

250*250

IV.RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Simulation Time (second)

End-to-End Delay

Network
Dimensions (m)
Max No. of
retransmission For
ACK technique

0.025

End-to-End Delay

Parameter

0.02

0.015
mobile mesh no ack
mobile mesh ack

0.01

0.005

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

1800

Simulation Time (second)

Fig. 9. The delay of mesh topology in case of mobile stations without

and with ack.

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ISBN:987-1-4799-3999-2

The delay of the network is increased with using ack

technique as compared without using ack (about 30%). The
movement of sensors may be led to increase the number of
retransmitting the ack frame. As a result to the mobility, the
delay will be increased.

The delay of wireless sensors network in case of tree

topology is shown in Fig. 10. In general, the delay of network
with ack is larger than without ack. Insomuch as the topology
of tree there is one way to each branch of the tree and the
distance is depended on the location of sensors. In order to
adding the reliability on packets exchanging, the ack frame
adds more delay.

0.035
0.03

End-to-End Delay

C. End to End Delay of Tree Topology with Fixed

ZigBee Sensors

0.04

0.025
0.02
mobile tree no ack
mobile tree ack

0.015
0.01
0.005
0

200

400

0.035

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

1800

Simulation Time (second)

fixed tree no ack
fixed tree ack

0.03

Fig. 11. The delay of tree topology in case of mobile stations without
and with ack.

End-to-End Delay

0.025

E. Throughput of Tree and Mesh Topologies with Fixed

ZigBee Sensors

0.02

0.015

Fig. 12. aims to illustrate the behavior of the wireless

sensors network from throughput of point of view for all
mentioned scenarios of fixed stations.

0.01

0.005
4

4
0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

1800

3.5

Fig. 10. The delay of tree topology in case of fixed stations without and
with ack.

D. End to End Delay of Tree Topology with Mobile

ZigBee Sensors
The delay of the network in case of mobile sensors is
shown in Fig. 11. It is noted from Figure that the delay is
roughly same the value for the cases of without and with ack
(about 32 m sec). The ack technique in this case is not adding
extra delay with respect to without ack due to the mobility.
This is related to sensor that has acknowledgements enabled
will be tried to fix the dropping packets related to moves
beyond its parent's transmission range, see Table 2 to review
the effect of ack on the state of packets (transmitting and
receiving).
In the environment of OPNET modeler, if the percentage
of transmission failures exceeds 50%, the sensor unjoins from
its parent, and then tries to join a new parent.

Throughput (bits/sec)

Simulation Time (second)

80

x 10

3
2.5
2
fixed tree ack
fixed tree no ack
fixed mesh no ack
fixed mesh ack

1.5
1
0.5
0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

1800

Simulation Time (second)

Fig. 12. The throughput of mesh and tree topologies in case of fixed
stations without and with ack.

It is generally observed from Fig.12. that the throughput of

mesh topology is larger than the throughput of tree topology.
This is related to presence many paths for packets in mesh
topology in contrast with tree topology. The effect of ack

2014 6th International Conference on CSIT

ISBN:987-1-4799-3999-2

differs hugely on the throughput for tree and mesh topologies.

In mesh topology, the throughput without ack is larger than
with ack because there is ack exchanging significantly in the
network. On the other hand, the effect of ack on the
throughput in case of tree topology is reversed where the
throughput of network is increased with ack where the usage
of ack adds about 4500 bit/sec on the throughput without ack.
F. Throughput of Tree and Mesh Topologies with
Mobile ZigBee Sensors
The performance of throughput for mobile sensors is
shown in Fig. 13. In case of mobile sensors in tree topology,
the throughput is larger than the throughput of mesh topology,
the employment of ack in case of tree topology led to decrease
the throughput about 12% as compared without ack while the
throughput with ack in case of mesh topology led to increase
the throughput of network about 17%.

performance of wireless sensors. Hence, there is different

effect on each type of topology depending on the number of
retransmitting to compensate the error which may be
occupied, and nature of topology structure. The results
indicate after using the acknowledgement technique that, the
acknowledgement in the mesh topology submitted throughput
improvement of about 9% as compared with traditional case
and almost kept on the same value of delay in case of fixed
sensors. On the other hand, the employment of
acknowledgement in tree topology increased throughput and
delay of about 22% and 24% respectively. The results show
in case of mobility that throughput and end to end delay are
increased with ack in mesh topology while in tree topology
throughput is decreased about 13% at same delay
approximately. Consequently, it is recommended to invest
acknowledgement technique in case of mesh topology which
is included fixed wireless ZigBee sensors, and tree topology
which is included mobile wireless ZigBee sensors.

x 10

REFERENCES

Throughput (bits/sec)

3.5

[1]

[2]
2.5

[3]
2
mobile tree no ack
mobile mesh no ack
mobile tree ack
mobile mesh ack

1.5

[4]

[5]

0.5
0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

1800

Simulation Time (second)

Fig. 13. The throughput of mesh and tree topologies in case of mobile
stations without and with ack.

V. CONCLUSIONS
This paper dealt with fixed and mobile wireless sensors in
the cases of mesh and tree topologies from end to end delay
and throughput points of view. Furthermore, the effect of
employment the acknowledgement technique on the wireless
sensors network is studied. It is noted from the results of fixed
ZigBee sensors that the throughput and end to end delay of
mesh topology are larger than the tree topology while in the
case of mobile sensors the throughput and end to end delay of
mesh topology are less than the throughput and the delay of
tree topology. It can be concluded from the results that the
acknowledgement technique plays important role on the

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