ABSTRACT
Recent years have seen a myriad research efforts aimed at conserving energy in
hardware-constrained devices equipped with a low-power radio interface employed
to retrieve environmental data. Clusters of these devices, referred to as wireless sen-
sor networks (WSNs) [7] must implement the necessary algorithms and communi-
cations protocols to achieve this energy efficiency objective efficiently. As of late,
the applicability boundaries of WSNs have been pushed to the limit by employing
networked sensors to retrieve bodily signals and readings that provide information
about the state of health in people [8]. A number of challenges remain to be solved
before these wireless body area sensor networks (WBASNs) become pervasive [11].
In particular, ZigBee technology [5] aims at providing a standardized platform upon
which this kind of technology can rely to create reliable commercial products. In this
chapter, we explore the steps involved in the development of WBASN products for
certification by the ZigBee Alliance, and describe important challenges, procedures,
and a walk-through example that users venturing into this endeavour can reference.
ZigBee is a standard for data communications between low-power devices that are
normally associated with sensor reading tasks in a variety of scenarios, including
home automation, smart home and industrial appliances, and even human health
monitoring [24]-[30]. It is based on IEEE 802.15.4, which specifies the physical
and media access layer standards [6]. This relationship is similar to the relationship
between the Wi-Fi Alliance [9] and the IEEE 802.11 standard [10]. To this regard, a
conglomerate of companies form the ZigBee Alliance, which issues the communica-
tions protocol standards that ZigBee-certified products adhere to.
