XBee and ZigBee Technologies for the Internet of Things

This course is directed at students who desire to learn to build hardware and software for Internet of Things (IoT) related projects quickly. It teaches students how to develop systems that employ the Digi-manufactured XBee Series 1 and Series 2 radios based on the ZigBee communication protocol. Specifically, it addresses the following topics: 1) XBee Series 1 radio for point-to-point communication, 2) the Digi Connectport X2 as a star network coordinator, 3) XBee Series 2 radio in AT/transparent mode, 4) XBee Series 2 radio in API mode, 5) relevant python programming basics, 6) data acquisition from a sensor via S2 radio, 7) overview of other Digi-manufactured devices relevant to ZigBee. The course provides an accompanying written document including code examples that students may download and adapt for their purposes.

The IEEE 802.15.4 Standard is very useful for the design of low-power wireless sensors. This course explores how technologies based on that standard, like ZigBee, may be applied to various Internet of Things (IoT) and Cyber-Physical Systems applications. This course is aimed at those students with at least some minimal experience building circuits on a breadboard and programming in an object-oriented language like Python. However, beginner students can still take a lot from this course, combining it with free online tutorials on building circuits and programming.