Teaching Application Development for RFID/ZigBee Networks using Open Source Hardware

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University of Novi Sad

Technical Faculty / Department of Information Technology

Teaching Application Development for RFID/ZigBee

Networks using Open Source Hardware

Dalibor Dobrilovic, Zeljko Stojanov, Borislav Odadzic Department of Information Technology

University of Novi Sad / Technical Faculty “Mihajlo Pupin” Zrenjanin, Serbia

[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]

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NTRODUCTION

There has been significant breakthrough in utilization of concepts such as Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) and the Internet of Things (IoT) in the last decade.

Their popularity and wide expansion impact the need and importance for inclusion of these concepts in university curricula.

On the other side, todays Computer Science has variety of sub-profiles or areas. According to ACM [1] in post 1999s era, computing curricula can be classified based on its orientation to: hardware (Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering), software (Computer Engineering, Computer Science and Software Engineering) and organizational needs (Information Technology and Information Systems).

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University of Novi Sad

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NTRODUCTION

According to the recommendations of the International Telecommunication Union

[2,3], the architecture of IoT consists of five layers:

 sensing layer,

 access layer,

 network layer,

 middleware layer and

 application layer.

Application layer uses the functions of the bottom layers, and builds the practical applications such as smart logistics, intelligent transportation, precision agriculture, disaster monitoring and distance medical care.

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M

OTIVATION

Students of Information Technologies and Software Engineering curricula should focus on application layer without the need of having deeper insight of other layers.

In the case of seminar projects, students should be able to easily create, program and configure a networked environment.

The students should be focused on development of an application for this environment, e.g. development of the application for monitoring temperature or pollution in the Wireless Sensor Network or an application for tracking human resources with RFID technology.

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OTIVATION

In order to build such a flexible platform, the attention should be pointed towards

open source hardware movement.

This paper presents an approach in creating a platform based on open source hardware with the goal to enable creation of networked environments for teaching development of software applications for WSN and IoT.

This modular platform is built to support the development of applications with special interest in wireless communication.

The platform is built around Arduino Uno microcontroller board and Seeedstudio Bees Shield [18]. The platform is used in teaching process of application development for RFID/ZigBee networked environment.

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OPEN SOURCE-HARDWARE

Arduino Project started back in 2005 and over 150,000 boards have been sold worldwide until 2010 [4]. This number is higher because of the number of unofficial clone boards.

It also serves as an efficient prototyping platform and for DIY (Do It Yourself) electronics.

Arduino is an open source project and anyone is free to make a clone or other variant of the Arduino. The type of Arduino board used in this research is Arduino UNO Rev3. The Arduino Uno is an open-source microcontroller board based on the ATmega328.

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OPEN SOURCE-HARDWARE

Arduino allows connection of various shields or expansion modules that extend functionality of Arduino. A shield can be connected without soldering, making Arduino highly configurable and flexible platform.

Nowadays, there are a lot of modules available on the market compatible with

XBee shield with the support for the following technologies:

 ZigBee,

 IEEE 802.15.4,

 Bluetooth,

 Bluetooth Low Energy,

 Wi-Fi,

 RFID,

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PLATFORM

The proposed platform is based on Arduino UNO Rev3. Another important component of this platform is Seeedstudio Bees Shield. For this platform, the

Libelium RFID 125 kHz module (©Libelium Comunicaciones Distribuidas S.L.) is used as a RFID reader. Communication module is Xbee S2 or variant.

No Component Description

1 Arduino UNO Rev3 Microcontroller unit

2 Libelium RFID 125 kHz module RFID nodule

3 Digi XBee® Series 2 (ZB) Communication module 4 Seeedstudio Bees shield Expansion module

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PLATFORM

ZigBee/RFID platform

(RFID Reader and ZigBee RF module)

Application server (listen COM15)

ZigBee Coordinator ZigBee RF module

with Xbee USB Dongle RFID read

only cards

Seeedstudio Bees shield

RFID/ZigBee platform

The XBee module connected to Bees Shield is configured as ZigBee Router.

Other XBee® Series 2 (ZB) module is configured as

ZigBee Coordinator. The XBee Coordinator is connected directly to the PC with XBee USB dongle

and it is accessible by any terminal program such as Putty via COM port.

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EXPERIMENT

In order to evaluate platform applicability, the experiment is made to test RFID data transfer via ZigBee network with described RFID and XBee Series 2 modules. In order to evaluate platform modularity, the experiment is made with three types of ZigBee communication modules from two different manufactures:

Xbee Series 2,

Seeedstudio MeshBee® and

XBee Series 1 (IEEE 802.15.4) module.

The modularity testing is important because of the eventual incorporation of other chnologies and other module types in the future, such as (Modbus, CAN bus, RS232, Bluetooth Low Energy, Bluetooth, 6loWPAN, IEEE 802.11, GPRS, GPS, RF proprietary protocols etc.).

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EXPERIMENT

During the test, network traffic was captured using Texas Instrument CC2531 with

USB Dongle and TI SmartRF packet sniffer.

Module PAN ID Encryption Channel Frequency Distance

XBee® S2 1001 No 26 2480 MHz 3m XBee® S1 3332 Yes 26 2480 MHz 3m MeshBee® 2000 Yes 20 2450 MHz 3m Module RFID Packet length Total packet sent RFID packet sent RFID packet received Success XBee S2 81 kB 734 40 40 100 % XBee S1 72 kB 851 36 36 100 % MeshBee 96kB 653 42 42 100 %

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EXPERIMENT

No Component _Description

1 Arduino UNO Rev3 _{Microcontroller unit}

2 Digi XBee® Series 2 (ZB) _{Communication module}

3 TinySine XBee shield v1 _{XBee module}

4 ABS enclosure _{Project enclosure}

Large ZigBee network simulation experiment

The details about platform components are presented bellow.

Instead of using a RFID module for reading RFID cards, the Arduino was

programed to randomly send “fake” predefined card IDs directly via XBee

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EXPERIMENT

ZigBee/RFID plarform Application server_{(listen COM15)}

ZigBee Coordinator RFID read only

cards

ZigBee/RFID simulated plarform #1

ZigBee Star Network PAN ID 1001

1

2

3

4 Real RFID data

Simulated RFID data Simulated RFID data

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CONCLUSION

The contribution of this paper is a novel approach in design and usage of platform

based on open source hardware created for teaching purposes and engineering

education.

The platform is designed to create a realistic environment for studentes to be able to develop WSN and IoT applications.

This environment can be used for student seminar works, projects, bachelor and master thesis, research and for implementation in a curricula as well.

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