Specifications

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establish their mesh hierarchy and the devices are all synchronized in relation to time and
the network heartbeat. Concluding the syn chronization process is the data transfer that
automatically directs data to a universal collection node. A PC connected to a device can
then request to use the network and us this advanced connection to access other devices
in the network. Last of all, the radio’s signal strength is monitored and the transmitting
power is adjusted to redu ce power consumption but keep a good connection.
The synchronizations and surfing of multiple devices using the radios took place mainly
in Logan Utah and Meridian ID during in-house tests. These features will be f urther tested
through the end of 2007. Once a few smaller bugs were dealt with, the device and radio
applications functioned correctly. It was observed that the radio network setup time was
on the order of two to thirty seconds. This is longer than desired, but these limitations are
imposed by the selected radio module. A future posibility is to actually design a custom
radio implmentation that will give the engineers full control of the entire set of ZigBee
network characteristics.