Abstract: as we distinguish, the data communication in the wireless networks is more untrustworthy than it is in the wired network environment. Even though the virtual carrier sensing scheme can be used in the wireless unicast transmission, the multicast and broadcast still not exploit the acknowledgement instrument for reliable transmission. This is due to the acknowledgement packets of broadcast programme will cause much sophisticated communication traffic and overhead. Since reliable data broadcast is critical and obligatory in many applications in the wireless sensor networks, our study focuses on the ZigBee network which is a new industrial standard for sensor networks. Some previous related papers improved the broadcast reliability by introducing redundant transmission and increasing coverage ratio of every receiver node, but there still exists probability of packet loss and extra communication cost due to redundant broadcast. Wireless sensor networks are functioning in several applications, including military, medical, environmental and domestic. In all these applications, energy usage is the determining factor in the performance of wire- less sensor networks. As a result, methods of zigbee based data routing and transferring to the base station are very important because the sensor nodes run on battery power and the energy available for sensors is limited. This Paper reviews all the aspects and constraints related to data routing within zigbee wireless sensor network.
Keywords: Zigbee Specifications, wireless sensor network, cluster based routing, energy efficiency, IEEE 802.15.4.