Heterogeneous wireless network based on Wi-Fi and ZigBee for cattle monitoring

The combination of using Wi-Fi and ZigBee technologies in an application to monitor cattle has the potential to increase the range of the network when the animal herd is roaming out of range of the sink. This paper investigates combining a Wi-Fi and ZigBee transceiver on the same sensor node to reliably obtain data of mobile cattle in a field. The solution proposed is a hybrid network conjoining the IEEE 802.11b/g and IEEE 802.15.4 protocols. Cattle as herd animals always roam in a herd manner. It has been observed that when the herd moves far away from the sink, the link between the herd and the sink breaks because there is no relay node in the middle. In order to maintain the link between the herd and the sink a heterogeneous network is proposed. The proposed solution extends the range of a ZigBee network used for cattle monitoring by pairing with the IEEE 802.11b/g protocol. In this paper, we implement two protocols IEEE 802.11b/g and 802.15.4/ZigBee in a hybrid network. The nodes have been designed to avoid interference between the two protocols and ensure good coverage of 802.11b/g in the area where the cattle moves. Moreover the design had to be cost effective so it could be useful for small to medium or large commercial farmers who are most susceptible to cattle theft.