Xbee Network Commissioning And Diagnostics; Xbee Device Configuration; Xbee Network Link Establishment And Maintenance; Building Aggregate Routes - Digi XBee User Manual

®
XBee/XBee-PRO DigiMesh 2.4 User Manual

XBee Network Commissioning and Diagnostics

Network commissioning is the process whereby devices in a network are discovered and
configured for operation. The XBee modules include several features to support device discovery
and configuration. In addition to configuring devices, a strategy must be developed to place
devices to ensure reliable routes.
To accommodate these requirements, the XBee modules include various features to aid in device
placement, configuration, and network diagnostics.

XBee Device Configuration

XBee modules are configured locally through serial commands (AT or API), or remotely through
remote API commands. API devices send configuration commands to set or read the
configuration settings of any device in the network.

XBee Network Link Establishment and Maintenance

Building Aggregate Routes

In many applications it is necessary for many or all of the nodes in the network to transmit data
to a central aggregator node. In a new DigiMesh network the overhead of these nodes
discovering routes to the aggregator node can be extensive and taxing on the network. To
eliminate this overhead, the AG command can be used to automatically build routes to an
aggregate node in a DigiMesh network.
To send a unicast, modules configured for transparent mode (AP=0) must set their DH/DL
registers to the MAC address of the node to which they need to transmit to. In networks of
transparent mode modules which transmit to an aggregator node, it is necessary to set every
module's DH/DL registers to the MAC address of the aggregator node. The following information
shows you how to do this.
When you deploy a DigiMesh network, you can issue the AG command on the desired aggregator
node. This will cause all nodes in the network to build routes to the aggregator node. The
command can optionally be used to automatically update the DH/DL registers to match the MAC
address of the aggregator node. The AG command requires a 64-bit parameter. The parameter
indicates the current value of the DH/DL registers on a module which should be replaced by the
64-bit address of the node sending the AG broadcast.
If you want to avoid updating the DH/DL of the module receiving the AG broadcast, you can use
the invalid address of 0xFFFE. API enabled modules will output an Aggregator Update API frame
if they update their DH/DL address (see the API section of this manual for a description of the
frame). All modules which receive an AG broadcast will update their routing table information to
build a route to the sending module, regardless of whether or not their DH/DL address is
updated. This routing information will be used for future transmissions of DigiMesh unicasts.
Example 1: To update the DH/DL registers of all modules in the network to be equal to the MAC
address of an aggregator node with a MAC address of 0x0013a2004052c507 after network
deployment the following technique could be employed:
© 2014 Digi International Inc. 27