ZigBee sets three layers of security, the first one is based on the IEEE 802.15.4 Link layer encryption. The others are implemented in the Networking and Application layers. All of them uses AES 128b as encryption mechanism but differ from the kind of authentication and privacy policies. Read the complete article.

As pointed in the previous article 802.15.4 vs Zigbee, the IEEE MAC layer implements several features which are used by the Zigbee protocol in the network and application layers. One of this features is the security services. IEEE 802.15.4 sets the encryption algorithm to use when cyphering the data to transmit, however,  the standard does not specify how the keys have to be managed or what kind of authentication policies have to be applied. These issues are treated in the upper layers which are managed by protocols such as ZigBee.

One of the main challenges when treating the objects and people location field is when they have to be found indoor. We have created a new device called X-Tick as a tool to let the creation of triangulation applications based on the RSSI parameter computation.

We have developed a SONAR mote for detecting presence and measuring distances up to 6.45m. It is constructed from an integrated ultrasound sensor placed into a SquidBee mote which wirelessly outputs range values whenever there is any moving object within the monitored area.