Development of a communication module based on Zigbee Technology.

Abstract

The UAV technology has tremendously improved over the years as well as its adaptation in human applications such as communication, search and rescue missions, surveillance, movie making among others as they have proven very resourceful. The remote-control system of these UAVs is typically based on Wi-Fi which has a limited range hence requiring Line of Sight for communication to take place. This research focused on developing a communication module for transmission of the telemetry data and control signals for a UAV based on IOT technology particularly ZigBee stack utilizing its mesh topology to route signals with the purpose of increasing the control beyond Visual Line of Sight. To achieve the objectives of this research, we started by analyzing and assessing node connectivity. We then went on to measure the system end to end delay using simulations in OPNET 14.5 then concluded with measurement of the transmission throughput. In the different topologies that we simulated i.e.; topologies A, B and C, the averaged end to end delay we attained was 0.0279s, 0.0275s and 0s while the average throughput in Kbps was 110.234, 110.453 and 75s respectively. In conclusion, we were able to deduce from the projects that the use of a ZigBee based module is way more power efficient than any other famous modules and can also be a better performer given some particular constraints.