Development of a field wireless sensors network based on ZigBee technology

A Field wireless sensors network based on ZigBee technology is developed. It consists of a PDA, a ZigBee coordinator, and several ZigBee nodes. First, PDA manages the coordinator to collect field information according to an order through its serial port. Secondly the coordinator gathers the data from all the terminal nodes. Finally, the collected information is transmitted to the PDA. Here the field information refers to soil moisture, soil temperature, soil electrical conductivity, environment humidity, and the sensors' status. The hardware architecture of each node consists of a ZigBee module integrated with transceiver, a microcontroller, some field sensors, and a peripheral circuit. Software is made up of algorithm of reading and processing the data from the field sensors, communicating process between ZigBee coordinator and the PDA, and the network building. Compared with the traditional agriculture information collecting system, the field wireless sensors network developed is more convenient and lower cost.