Controlling XBee IO lines with ZigBee commands

Summary: this post explains to send remote AT commands to an XBee module using ZigBee commands. The end point, profile ID, cluster ID and command and response format is documented. This is useful if you need to control a XBee's IO lines from a non-XBee device.

The Digi XBee Series 2 module.

The Digi XBee module is a popular RF module featuring a UART and several IO lines that can be configured as input/output or in some cases ADC or PWM. The "Series 2" version of these modules can be flashed with ZigBee compatible firmware. The modules then participate in a ZigBee mesh network.

The modules are configured and controlled by  AT commands (like the modems of old) which are issued through the module's UART by a computer or microcontroller. There are two varieties of the firmware: AT mode and API mode. The latter provides access to more advanced features of the module.

One feature of the API mode is the ability to send AT commands to remote XBee modules. This can be used to control relays, read the state of switches, read temperature etc. This in theory allows many small control applications to be accomplished with nothing more than a XBee module on it's own -- no need for an attached microcontroller.

There is a problem however. All the examples and documentation I've seen to date (I may very well have missed something, but not for the lack of trying) only cover controlling a XBee module through the XBee API. So if your interface to the ZigBee network is not a XBee (or equivalent Digi product) you're out of luck. In my case I have a Texas Instruments CC2530 based USB dongle and I require that software running on a computer control the state of a remote XBee's IO lines.

So, reverse engineering time! I wrote scripts to control the XBee digital IO lines from another XBee, and simultaneously ran a 802.15.4 packet sniffer. This is what I learned:

For remote AT commands the sending XBee issues a ZigBee command to the remote XBee on endpoint 230 (0xE6), with profile 0xC105 (Digi private profile), cluster 0x0021. The command is formatted as follows:

0x00, 0x32, 0x00, frame-id, sender-ieee-addr, 0x00, 0x00, atcmd0, atcmd1, [param]

frame-id: one byte API frame ID used in many XBee API calls
sender-ieee-addr: the 64 bit IEEE address (8 bytes, the most significant byte first)
atcmd0: the ASCII code of first character of the AT command (eg 0x4d or 'M' if command is ATMY)
atcmd1: the ASCII code of the second char of the AT command (eg ...)
params: zero, one or more optional parameter bytes

For example: to send ATMY (get 16 bit network address) the command will be:
0x00, 0x32, 0x00, 0x0f, 0x00, 0x13, 0xa2, 0x00, 0x40, 0x3c, 0x15, 0x5c, 0x00, 0x00, 0x4d, 0x59

The bytes with values 0x00 and 0x32 may have some significance, but I have no idea what it might be. I'm not sure if the sender IEEE address is important. It seems to work the same no mater what address I use.

Responses are sent on cluster 0x00a1. In response to the ATMY command I get:
0x0f, 0x4d, 0x59, 0x00, 0xd1, 0xed

So that seems to be:
frame-id, atcmd0, atcmd1, 0x00, atresponse...

The XBee digital IO lines are configured with the ATDn commands, where 'n' is the number of the IO line. The lines can be configured as input, output low, output high, analog and PWM (not all lines are capable of all the functions). The two functions that are of interest to me are output high (parameter value 5) and output low (parameter value 4).

Note: there is potential for some confusion encoding AT commands. Take for example the command ATD04. What this means is AT command D0 with parameter 4.  The digit 0 in the command part is encoded as the ASCII code ie 0x30, but the digit in the parameter part (4) is the byte value 0x04. So the command and parameters is encoded as 0x44, 0x30, 0x04.

Other clusters in endpoint 230 have other functions, which I'll document in another post.

Update (2 Oct 2011): Small edit. I omitted the frame-id in the format of the AT command response.

Irish electricity use and wind generation, 2001 - 2011

In response to a chart I posted earlier this week on the Irish national electricity grid wind production, I got a few queries which would suggest that people are not familiar with that electricity demand looks like. So here are a few charts which will hopefully provide some insight. I’m not an expert on this topic, so I’m not going to say much other than present some pretty charts.

First this is what demand looks like throughout the day. There are differences between summer and winter demand. Being a country where air chilling is rarely needed, a significant proportion of power is consumed by heating, but very little by cooling. So as expected average use during summer is less than winter. Night use is way lower than day use (no surprise there). In winter however, between 17:00 and 19:00 there is peak. This is presumably due to people coming home from work and switching on heating. This peak is a problem as it often stretches the Irish grid to its limits during the winter.

The following chart is a typical week. There is a clear difference between weekday and weekend use levels.

As mentioned earlier summer demand is lower than winter. Right in the middle of winter is the Christmas and New Year holidays which disrupt the usual patterns.

Over 10 years one can see a steady increase in electricity demand up to the recession in 2008. Wind generation really started to take off in 2005.

Here is the same 10 years of data displayed in oscilloscope style (one week per frame).

I believe there was a time where individual events were clearly visible in the demand charts. For example in the 1960s the RTÉ (the national broadcaster) could estimate the 'Late Late Show' viewing figures from spikes during ad breaks (tea, kettles...) [can't find any refs for this]. Nowadays there is so much power being consumed that it's very rare to see any individual event in the data. I did spot one exception which I assume had something to do with the events in the US on 11 Sep 2001. But how exactly that translated into a significant spike at about 12:00 the next day, I don't know.

The data is provided by EirGrid (the state-owned electric power transmission operator in the Republic of Ireland). The system demand definition is stated as “production required to meet national electricity consumption, including system losses, but net of generators' requirements.  It includes power imported via the interconnector and an estimate of the power produced by wind generators, but excludes some non-centrally monitored generation (i.e. small scale CHP).”