Reducing power consumption in pseudo-ZigBee sensor networks

This paper presents a new method for power minimization in wireless sensor networks using the ZigBee protocol. A modification of the standard protocol is proposed for use to any low bit-rate data communications application resulting in a ZigBee-like network with considerably reduced power consumption. Time scheduling is proposed to switch on and off the power of the transmitter/receiver circuit, minimizing the power consumed in router devices. Thus the attractive capability of ZigBee networks to reduce the consumption at end-devices is extended to the coordinator and the routers. A small 3-nodes wireless network using the proposed method was built and studied experimentally and the results presented in this paper show a significant reduction to consumption, reaching up 85% compared to standard ZigBee configurations.