Comparative Performance Analysis between
nRF24L01+ and XBEE ZB Module Based
Wireless Ad-hoc Networks
A paper was written comparing Zigbee vs nRF24L01+ based networks. For those of you who are interested, here is the paper:
See http://www.mecs-press.org/ijcnis/ijcnis-v9-n7/IJCNIS-V9-N7-5.pdf for the full report.
Abstract—Among the common wireless communication
modules like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, XBee modules are
embedded solutions providing wireless communication
standard with self-healing mesh networks, which has
longer range than Bluetooth and lower power
consumption than Wi-Fi.
An alternative to the XBee radio
modules is nRF24L01+ radio modules which are cheap
and powerful, highly integrated, ultra-low power (ULP)
2Mbps RF transceiver ICs for the 2.4GHz ISM (Industrial,
Scientific, and Medical) band. In this paper, performances
of nRF24L01+ modules have been analyzed and
compared with that of XBee ZB modules in wireless
ad-hoc networks. The performance metrics for the
analytical study are -
1) Throughput measurement,
2)
Mesh routing recovery time and
3) Power consumption.
This work has revolved around an open source library
released by the developer, tmrh20 which builds a
complete TCP/IP suite on top of the nRF24L01+
modules.
Conclusion—In this study, we have analyzed all the parameters
mentioned in the introduction, focusing on the stark
differences in the performance of nRF24L01+ against
XBee. nRF24L01+ could provide a better throughput
compared to XBee in almost all scenarios especially in
point-to-point communication where it outshines XBee by
a country mile. For multihop networks as well, the rate of
transmission remains considerably higher...
...The radio, as well as well its supporting libraries have
been under focus for quite some time now, however, in
terms of development, it is still in its nascent phase.
Nevertheless, its impact in the field has been nothing short
of revolutionary because of the raw range and bandwidth
it provides on paper at affordable prices. However, it
remains to be seen whether with improvements in the
sleep cycle implementation in the RF24 library or with a
better alternative to the RF24 family, the nRF may be
indeed considered a cheap viable replacement for XBee in
wireless ad-hoc networks
TMRh20 Opinion:
The study seems fair, but it is clear that the radios were not fully operational due to the hardware configuration, with power supply issues. ( Although an official Arduino Uno should be capable of driving the radios at 3.3v with no major issues ) It doesn't really make a lot of sense to conduct a range of testing using a known faulty hardware configuration, as this limited the range to 1m between nodes, throughput suffered as well as performance of the mesh.
As far as power consumption and implementation, the devices typically use approx. 15mA in active RX and slightly less during transmission. As active RF24Mesh nodes are always listening, they can choose to use interrupts to sleep the MCU during periods of inactivity (wake on RX), or remove themselves from the network and sleep completely. There are really not many options for managing the power usage/sleep cycles of these devices.
TMRh20 Opinion:
The study seems fair, but it is clear that the radios were not fully operational due to the hardware configuration, with power supply issues. ( Although an official Arduino Uno should be capable of driving the radios at 3.3v with no major issues ) It doesn't really make a lot of sense to conduct a range of testing using a known faulty hardware configuration, as this limited the range to 1m between nodes, throughput suffered as well as performance of the mesh.
As far as power consumption and implementation, the devices typically use approx. 15mA in active RX and slightly less during transmission. As active RF24Mesh nodes are always listening, they can choose to use interrupts to sleep the MCU during periods of inactivity (wake on RX), or remove themselves from the network and sleep completely. There are really not many options for managing the power usage/sleep cycles of these devices.
