ZigBee PRO Stack and Software Development Kit

ZDO & APS

Provides a set of fully compliant ZigBee Device Object APIs to enable network management (start, reset, formation, join), and power management (sleep, wakeup). Defines ZigBee Device Profile types, device and service discovery commands. Provides APIs for unicast, multicast, and broadcast data transmission and acknowledgment.

BSP & HAL

Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) includes a complete set of APIs for using on-module hardware resources (EEPROM, app, sleep, and watchdog timers) as well as the reference drivers for rapid design-in and smooth integration with a range of external peripherals (IRQ, I2C, SPI, UART, 1-wire). Board Support Package (BSP) includes a complete set of drivers for managing standard peripherals (sensors, UID chip, placed on a MeshBean development board.

Task manager

Provides API for scheduling tasks in a priority queue optimized for ZigBee multi-layer stack environment and time-critical protocol demands.

Power management is essential to low power applications with sleeping devices. To ensure maximum battery life, the stack must minimize wake up time and fall asleep time, thus decreasing active period and overall power consumed by the module. Power management APIs include those that let user application inform the stack of its readiness to sleep, and callbacks that inform the user application of a wakeup. If there are no outstanding user timers, power down mode is selected automatically at run time, yielding more than 60% energy savings over standard power save mode (2.5 uA vs. 6 uA). When user timers are present, power save mode is chosen, allowing users to wake up on a timer, and to keep track of time through the sleep periods.

Mesh routing ensures maximum network utilization, while minimizing the number of hops that each packet has to traverse to its destination. Because mesh routing tables create additional RAM pressure, extreme care must be taken to optimize RAM consumption in order to maximize the number of concurrent routes going through a single node. Route discovery algorithm employed by ZigBee is yet another challenge. BitCloud addresses these network traffic management challenges with innovative optimizations and algorithms that deliver ultimate robustness while remaining fully compliant with ZigBee specification.

Multiple addressing modes provide additional flexibility in the way users can refer to their nodes. In tree routing (alternative to mesh routing), nodes are given addresses which are fully determined by their position in the tree. If a node's position changes, so does its address, making it an inconvenient identifier for a persistent reference. Likewise, in mesh routing, stochastic addresses are chosen randomly for every node. These addresses can also change many time in a network's lifetime. BitCloud employs a novel approach that addresses both of these limitations with a static addressing scheme (addresses, once given, are kept for the entire lifetime of the network), making it easy to refer to devices no matter which type of routing or addressing scheme is used.

Over-the-air upgrade is supported over a multi-hop network without interrupting network operation or significantly affecting network performance. Downloaded images are stored off-module, checksummed, and flashed into the module ensuring failure-free operation throughout the upgrade process and beyond. Moreover, the default factory image can be restored at any point during the device's lifetime effectively unrolling the upgrade.**

Configuration server is a component of the stack that stores key stack configuration parameters and allows users to change them without recompiling the core stack layers. Users can configure the stack and specify key parameters (e.g. select tree vs. mesh routing, network fan-in, and depth, PAN ID, channel mask, etc.) all without managing multiple versions of the stack libraries.

* Exclusive new stack feature and/or enhancement

** Requires software upgrade and hardware extension boards as part of Over-the-Air Upgrade Kit (MNAP-DK)