Week Six - Program XBee & PPT

What is XBee

XBee is the brand name form Digi international for a family factor compatible radio modules. The first XBee radio were introduced under the MaxStream brand in 2005 and were based on the 802.15.4-2003 standard designed for point-to-point star communications at over-the-air baud rates of 250 kbits/s.

The XBee radios can all be used with the minimum four number of connections – power (3.3 V), ground, data in and data out (UART), with other recommended lines being Reset and Sleep.

 control, I/O, A/D and indicator lines built in. A version of the XBees called the programmable XBee has an additional onboard processor for user’s code. The programmable XBee and a new surface mount (SMT) version of the XBee radios were both introduced in 2010.

As of February 2013, the XBee radio family consists of^[7]

• XBee 802.15.4 – The initial point-to-point topology or star topology module running the IEEE 802.15.4 protocol
• XBee-PRO 802.15.4 – A higher power, longer range version of the XBee 802.15.4
• XBee DigiMesh 2.4 – A 2.4 GHz XBee module which uses DigiMesh, a sleeping mesh networking protocol developed by Digi International
• XBee-PRO DigiMesh 2.4 – A higher power, longer range version of the XBee DigiMesh 2.4
• XBee ZB – An XBee module that incorporates the ZigBee PRO mesh networking protocol
• XBee-PRO ZB – A higher power, longer range version of the XB
  ee ZB
• XBee ZB SMT – A surface mount XBee running the ZigBee protocol
• XBee-PRO ZB SMT – A higher power, longer range version of the XBee ZB SMT
• XBee SE – An XBee ZB module that incorporates the security cluster for the ZigBee Smart Energy public profile
• XBee-PRO SE – A higher power, longer range version of the XBee SE
• XBee-PRO 900HP - A 900 MHz XBee-PRO module with up to 28 mile range with high-gain antenna, which supports DigiMesh networking protocol
• XBee-PRO 900 (Legacy) – A 900 MHz proprietary point-to-point and star topology module, not recommended for new design
• XBee-PRO XSC (S3B) – A 900 MHz module compatible over the air with the Digi 9XStream radios
• XBee-PRO DigiMesh 900 (Legacy) – A 900 MHz module which uses DigiMesh, not recommended for new design (see XBee-PRO 900HP for new designs)
• XBee-PRO 868 – An 868 MHz 500 mW long-range module which supports proprietary point-to-point and star, for use in Europe
• XBee 865/868LP - An 868 MHz XBee module which uses DigiMesh, available in Surface Mount form-factor (also configurable to 865 MHz for use in India)

After study for XB we decided to use XBee pro S2 

it has a bigger communication range.

As well as it is able to have a network communication not just point-to-point communication.

This is XBee explorer. We have to mount XBee on top of it in order to connect it to computer.

This is XBee shield. If we need to connect XBee to Audrunio for programming, we have to mount XBee on top if XBee shield and mount XBee shield on top of Audrunio.

We use X-CTU to configure XBee 

Our 1st test for XBee....
However, was not very successful 
We accidentally connected the XBee in reverse direction ...opps... 
it caused XBee connection error . Sadly, we broke the antenna on the XBee but it was still working fine...O.0