International Conference on “Multidisciplinary Trends In Academic Research” MTAR, 29 – 30 September 2014 MTAR © 2014 Global Illuminators, Bangkok, Thailand
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Study of the performance of XBee modules’ communication in clear line of sight with different mounting elevations in viral advertisement
system
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Mohd Rusdy Yaacob Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka - Melaka
rusdyutem.edu.my
Abstract:
This paper presents a study on the effect of distance between XBee modules to the signal strength and data packet size for three different mounting elevations. The study has been
conducted by using two units of XBee modules which each represents a receiver and a transmitter. The transmitter is mounted in three different elevations which are 0.5, 1.5 and 2.5 meter from the
ground while the receiver is fixed at the same elevation. When the transmitter continuously transmits the wireless signal carrying its particular address, the receiver will detect the signal
address once the range of communication of both receiver and transmitter intersects. The results obtained are the signal strength, in percentage, and data size, in byte, with respect to the distance
between receiver and transmitter for different mounting elevations of transmitter. These data are then converted into graph that illustrates the signal strength-distance and data packet size-distance
characteristics for each mounting elevation. Finally, the best mounting elevation is to be identified based on the result obtained.
Key words:
XBee, signal strength, data packet.
1. Introduction
In the development of advertisement system, the importance of having wireless technology is significantly increasing especially in the scenario where the information is dynamically changing over the
time. This is because wireless advertisement allows the flexibility in sending and displaying the information as well as modifying it when necessary. Despite it also solves the environmental issue from the usage of
papers which are going to be dumped later on.
There are several types of protocol that can be used for a viral advertisement system. The one that could be very common nowadays is Zigbee protocol. The information is wirelessly transmitted within the range of
the XBee device. The size of the advertisement can be transmitted at a certain period of time, as well as the signal strength the module can transmit are still questionable to be figured out. This is because how far the
information is being sent out will result in different effect. Hence this study is done to provide a better understanding in term of explaining the behavior of data size and signal strength over the distance the data is
transferred. However, the study will be just focusing on the communication within a clear line of sight without obstacles.
Previous researches have been done which employ Zigbee protocol in transferring data between different points. Researchers from Anna University of Technology have come out with their research
regarding the study on Zigbee technology. The study discusses the characteristics of Zigbee like the power
consumption, data rate, cost and time delay [1]. However the data packet size of information and signal strength of XBee modules over a distance did not come into consideration.
Another research was done by researchers from Akita, Japan regarding the flexible bus system using Zigbee as the communication medium. In their research, experiments were done to study the detection range
as well as data transfer involved while the data being transferred was solely the bus routes and number of passengers [2]. Therefore, it is proven that Zigbee can be used in bus transportation system. This is a good
motivation for a new research on the viral advertisement system which utilizes bus as the information carrier to spread out the advertisement.
In this paper, we will further discuss on the measuring principle in Section 2. Section 3 describes the experimental setup used for the data size measurement and finally in Section 4, we will thoroughly discuss
the results obtained from the experiments
2. Measuring Principle
