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Simulation and Evaluation of ZigBee based

Smart Home using Qualnet Simulator
Conference Paper December 2015
DOI: 10.1109/ICSensT.2015.7438456

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2015 Ninth International Conference on Sensing Technology

Simulation and Evaluation of ZigBee based Smart

Home using Qualnet Simulator
H.Ghayvat, Liu.Jie, A.Babu, M.E.Alahi, U.A.B.U.A.Bakar, S.C.Mukhopadhyay and X.Gui
School of Engineering and Advanced Technology
Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
Email: h.ghayvat@massey.ac.nz, ghayvat@gmail.com

test-beds and analytical models is quite effective, but it is not

feasible in terms of time required to setup the network, cost and
complexity associated with deployment. Analytical methods
demand some simplifications to model and forecast the system
performance. Hence, analytical methods are incongruous due
to the complication and diverse nature of node density, node
mobility, network architecture, communication medium and
channel characteristics. On the other way overgeneralized
models, most of the times lead to erroneous results. According
to the research study, 53% of the researchers used simulation in
their research [1,9 and 10].

Abstract This research aims to represent the ZigBee mesh

routing and the performance under simulation
environment for smart home. In the realistic smart home,
researcher does not get some of the analysis and results.
Hence, we designed and developed ZigBee best virtual
smart home environment on Qualnet simulator. Finally, we
suggest mixed-mode simulation methodology that
integrates the smart home environment with realistic
wireless sensor network tested hardware to get optimized
system performance.

Fig.1 represents the different methods of performance

evaluation that are analytical modeling, simulators, real
deployment and testbed. The urban environment constraints of
WSNs restrict their genuine communication and data
processing potential. Hence, by the application of these above
performance evaluation tools the analysis of deployment
environment and management of sensor nodes is a puzzling
endeavor [10-12].

Keywords- ZigBee, Wireless Sensor and Networks (WSNs);

Smart Home; Industrial grade; QOL (Quality of Link); Packet
Delivery Ratio (PDR); Packet Success Rate (PSR) and Packet
Error Rate (PER)Energy consumed, simulation, smart home.

I.

INTRODUCTION

The smart home technology was primarily developed for

automation of commercial structures, and gained global
acceptance for commercial property. Technical improvements
are getting smart homes that reverts to individuals
requirements and desires within range. People spend most of
the time of their life either at home or workstation. In the 21st
century, science developments have allowed us to enhance the
comfort and housing offered by the home environment.
Understanding the user behavior into the home ambient is
useful in making the home environment smarter and relative
towards our necessities. The smart home technology is the
integration of wireless communication network and embedded
electronics devices. A wireless sensor network is a distinct kind
of communication and sensing network that usually comprises
data logging, storage, distribution, and analysis system. The
data storage and energy constraints requirements differentiate
the WSNs from other communication networks technologies.
Every research and development work should be tested and
evaluated before its implementation in the realistic domain. A
successful WSNs based smart home deployment requires the
design methodologies and approaches be verified before they
are applied for a specific hardware solution. Developing and
analyzing the model, testing and evaluating the WSN protocol
and associative architectures and services for WSNs can be
examined by test-beds as well as simulation. The approach of

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Figure1. Performance evaluation techniques

Simulators, test beds, and emulators are significant tools to

examine the algorithms and methodologies at design and
development process before implementing in the real world.
In the recent time, much simulation tools have been developed
to address the issues of WSNs deployment and these tools are
further extended to application-specific simulators. These tools
are built by different designer and companies that differ in
design goals, protocol, and standards abstraction level. The

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below table 1 represents different WSN specific simulation

tools with their relative features and limitations [13-15].

Table 1: Summary of reviewed simulation tools

Simulation
tool

License

Simulation
code support

Simulation
code
exportable

Protocol
design and
implement
ation
possible

Commerci
al

Qualnet

C,C++

Yes

Dynamic
changes
network
topology
allowed

Yes

Yes

in
are

Custom
extension
for
individual
WSN
simulation
Yes

Key Features

Deficiencies

-Userfriendly GUI to
see 3D view

-One
expensive
tool

of
the
simulation

-Capability
of
generating
the results for
lower to upper
layer
-Support
simulation and
emulation

Commerci
al

OPNET

C, C++

Limited
extend

Yes

Yes

Yes

-Feasible to
apply
full
potential
of
programming
language

-Scalability
measurability

and

issues

-For system
characteristics
description, it
uses hierarchical
model
Open
source

NS-3

OMNET++

Open
access for
academic
and full
version
commerci
al version
Open
source

TOSSIM

C++

Limited

C, C++

Limited

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Limited

Yes

-Supports a
real-time
schedule

-GUI is very limited

- Does not allow
real hardware code

-Supports
simulation and
emulation

problem

-Supports
standard energy
modeling

-Doest allow realtime OS execution time

modeling

Scalability

-Does not have 3D

radio modeling
C,
nesC

C++,

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

-Can
be
directly
modified at enddevice node

-This
is
more
towards the lot of
assumptions about the
target hardware platform

-All
the
nodes share the
same
code
image
GloMoSim

Open
source

C/Parsec

Limited

With
some
limitation

Yes

Yes

-follows
layered
approach

-uses
standard APIs
between
different
simulation

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580

-accuracy is low

2015 Ninth International Conference on Sensing Technology

layers
Open
source

SensorSim

C++

Limited

Limite
d up to
some of the
WSNs

Yes

Yes

-Its
main
feature
it
supports
protocol
modeling with
various
communication
channels
and
relative power
demand
-Support
different
scenarios
of
urban
and
suburban
deployment

Open
source

J-Sim

Java

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

-It is good
to
generate
some
pattern
from the WSNs
deployment
- Provide
good interface
to
implement
the simulation
code to real
sensor nodes

Open
source

Dingo

Python

Yes

Limite

Limited

Yes

-Offers
excellent
visualization
and GUI
Programming
language can be
explored
completely

This paper is organized as follows. Section-II describes the

smart home system and description of deployment. Section-III
presents the results of real smart home and details the
limitation of these results. The necessity of Qualtnet simulator
and emulator is discussed in detail with experimental analysis
and results in section-IV. Lastly, the conclusion and future
work is presented in Section V.
II.

-It includes extra

overhead
information
for
internetwork
communication

-Tools
are
specifically designed to
WSNs but failed to offer
full support at physical
layer

heterogeneous sensors. The wireless sensor nodes are deployed

according to individual ambient requirement. The wireless
sensors data is collected into local home gateway server
through the receiver. These data packets are further analyzed
through data mining and machine learning algorithm. The final
information is uploaded onto the website for remote access [28]. Fig.2 shows the heterogeneous sensor deployment into the
home for ambient assisted living.

SMART HOME SYSTEM DESCRIPTION:

WSNs based smart home system we have designed and

implemented for ambient assisted living. This system contains

978-1-4799-6314-0/15/$31.00 2015 IEEE

-Quite complicated
to use and difficult to
program

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Figure 2: Home layout to represent wireless sensor deployment

100

III.

PDR with 1 obstruction

PDR with 2 obstruction
PDR with 3 obstruction
PDR with 4 obstruction

SMART HOME RESULTS AND LIMITATION:

80

PDR (%)

The research emphases on the statistical description of

IEEE 802.15.4 ZigBees physical and medium access layer
(MAC) consistency towards smart home. Smart home
monitoring is moreover, utilizing the building automation
systems to the urban residential environment. So we can
describe the smart home monitoring as the application of
computerization to integral systems of accommodation
facilities to enhance and improve the everyday life of a
resident. The testing of ZigBee wireless sensor communication
with its characterization is not documented thoroughly in an
urban scenario. In this research, we use ZigBee protocol based
XBee series 2, and packet delivery ratio and latency is
observed in genuine, smart home monitoring system instead of
any testbed setup. These results are functions of distance,
hopping, and obstacles.

60

40

20

0
4

12
10
8
Distance between Tx and Rx (meters)

16

Figure 3: PDR as a function of distance and number of obstacles between

transmitter and receiver
100
PSRobs1
PSRobs2
PSRobs3
PSRobs4

98

PSR (%)

Fig.3, 4, 5 and 6 shows the packet reliability parameter as a

function of end-device and coordinator spacing and some
obstacles between them. With the increase in distance and
number of obstacles between wireless nodes the packet
delivery ratio (PDR) and packet success ratio (PSR) reduces,
while packet loss rate (PLR) and packet error rate (PER)
increases. In the figure, obs1 means one obstruction, obs2
means two obstructions, obs3 means 3 obstructions and obs4
means 4 obstructions between transmitter and receiver. Fig.7
shows how the delay varies with respect to spacing between
nodes and obstructions.

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14

96

94

92

90
4

8
10
12
Distance between Tx and Rx (meters)

14

Figure 4: PSR as a function of distance and number of obstacles between

transmitter and receiver

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2015 Ninth International Conference on Sensing Technology

IV.

10

The qualnet simulator we have used to design and generate

the WSN based smart home environment. Below results show
some of the parameters that we do not get in realistic, smart
home setup. These results are simulation based and help up to
some extend to analyze system performance. Fig.8 represents
the deployment of wireless sensors in the home environment.
The home environment is generated through the Qualnet
simulator with the use of C/C++ programming language. We
kept same technical specification and parameters for RF
module, electronic appliances and other household stuffs which
we have implemented in real world smart home. This
deployment environment contains local home gateway server
with coordinator. Fig.9 shows the consumption of energy in
idle mode. Wireless nodes 3, 9, 10 and 12 consumed less
energy as compared to other nodes. These nodes are end-device
nodes which transmits the data and return to idle mode.
Remaining nodes are router-end device nodes, these nodes
have the responsibility to transmit their own data and relay the
data of neighbor nodes. Fig.10 shows the beacon requests
generated by different wireless nodes. The majority of requests
are generated by the wireless nodes which we configured as a
router- end device. Fig. 11 represents the average path loss in
dB of all wireless nodes. This path loss is the function of
distance and multi path fading. All wireless nodes faced the
slightly different level of path loss.

PERobs1
PERobs2
PERobs3
PERobs4

8
PER (%)

6
4
2
0
4

12
10
8
Distance between Tx and Rx (meters)

16

14

Figure 5: PER as a function of distance and number of obstacles between

transmitter and receiver

100
PLRobs1
PLRobs2
PLRobs3
PLRobs4

PLR (%)

80

60

QUALNET BASED SIMULATION FOR SMART HOME:

40

20

0
4

10

12

14

16

Distance between Tx and Rx (meters)

Figure 6: PLR as a function of distance and number of obstacles between
transmitter and receiver
500
Dobs1
Dobs2
Dobs3
Dobs4

Delay (ms)

400
300
200
100
0
4

12
10
8
Distance between Tx and Rx (meters)

14

Figure 8: Wireless sensors deployment in the smart home simulation

environment

16

Figure 7: delay as a function of distance and number of obstacles between

transmitter and receiver

For complete system performance analysis, we need some

other parameters of different layers. The simulation is the only
solution to generate these parameters.

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Figure 9: Energy consumption in idle mode by all nodes in the network

Figure 10: Number of beacon requests generated by nodes

Figure 11: The average path loss (dB) comparison between node

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CONCLUSION:
The smart home system environment implemented at two
different levels, first at real world home and another one is
simulation environment. The results of simulation environment
could help another researcher to understand the characteristics
of other different parameters that we do not find in realistic,
smart home results.

7.

8.

9.

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