An Effective Three-Channel Combination Configuration Method for ZigBee with WiFi Channel Interference

As an important part of the Internet-of-Things (IoT) and Smart City technologies, connected vehicles have attracted increasing attention of many researchers and enterprises. Both ZigBee and WiFi are the key communication technologies to support data acquisition and transmission in connected vehicles, IoT, Smart City, etc. As the WiFi communication carrier frequency and ZigBee communication carrier frequency share 2.4GHz ISM frequency band, ZigBee communication can be easily interfered by WiFi while individual devices equipped with ZigBee and WiFi, respectively, operate in the same communication space simultaneously. To address this challenge, we conduct an in-depth study on channel configuration mechanisms by comparing WiFi communication and ZigBee communication. We then propose a new combination configuration method by using three ZigBee channels, which can also act as a Fast channel switching method for terminal node interference detection (FCSM). This new method can solve the problem that ZigBee communication is susceptible to WiFi communication interference when working in the same space environment. Through extensive experimental evaluation and verification, the performance results demonstrate that the three-channel combination configuration method can reduce the jamming probability of ZigBee networks and effectively solve the interference problem between ZigBee and WiFi communications.