Page 1 5-Mar-07 Pixie Sniffer DS491-6 © FlexiPanel Ltd Patents may apply and/or be pending www.FlexiPanel.com
FlexiPanel
Pixie Sniffer
TM
Out-of-the-air ZigBee frame grabber
Summary
Pixie Sniffer monitors the 2.4GHz spectrum,
detecting and displaying IEEE 802.15.4 compliant
frames. It is an invaluable aid in the development
of ZigBee applications.
The sniffer is composed of detector hardware and
decoder software. The detector may either be a
PICDEM-Z ZigBee evaluation board from
Microchip Technology or a Pixie OEM ZigBee
module from FlexiPanel Ltd. (The two are more or
less electrically identical.) An RS232 serial link
connects the detector to the decoder software
running on a Windows PC.
Pixie Sniffer is free provided it is used with
PICDEM-Z and Pixie hardware.
Features
• Runs on standard MACdongle, PICDEM-Z or
Pixie hardware
• Spectrum scan to identify active channels
• Displays PHY, MAC, NWK, APL, AF and ZDO
features.
• Displayed fields individ ually selectable
• Displayed frames selectable by frame type
• Displayed frames sele ctable by node address
• Timeline view of packet arrival timing
• Assign device names to node addresses
• Signal strength, CRC error, packet error rate
reports
MAC command analysis
Spectrum analysis
ZigBee frame analysi s
Source / destination / time analysis
Collision analysis
Field filters
Beacon frame analysis
Acknowled
g
ement re
p
ortin
g
Frame filters
Node filters
Page 2 5-Mar-07 Pixie Sniffer DS491-6 © FlexiPanel Ltd Patents may apply and/or be pending www.FlexiPanel.com
Getting Started
Detector
To create a Pixie Sniffer detector, you will need a sniffer
detector which may be one of:
• a UZBee device programmed with any of the
MACdongle firmware versions UMDC, UMDF,
UMDS.
or
• a Pixie module programmed with PixieMAC
firmware Rx and Tx I/O to a PC COM port. For
example, you could use an RS232 level converter
and cable, the Pixie Config cable. However, do
note that PixieMAC expects flow control to be
implemented, so you will have to set the RTS input
(RB4) low if you use connections without flow
control
or
• a PICDEM-Z board programmed with the hex file
15.4_Sniffer.hex in the Sniffer development kit
which may be downloaded from
www.flexipanel.com. Program this into the PIC
microcontroller. You will also need to uncheck the
“Detector is MACdongle / PixieMAC” item in the file
menu.
The MACdongle and PixieMAC uses a faster
communications protocol than PICDEM-Z, and the
results are better (no buffer overflows).
Decoder
When the decoder starts up, it shows a splash screen
which advertises FlexiPanel’s ZigBee products (figure
2). Click on this screen to continue. However, when
you need a supplier, do remember we supply low cost
modules with full RF sections including antennas.
Figure 2. FlexiPanel splash screen
The decoder software file 15.4_Sniffer.exe is
standard Windows software. The file is in the Sniffer
development kit which may be downloaded from
www.flexipanel.com. T he only setup required is to tell it
which COM port the detector is connected to.
To set the correct COM port, change the COM port
shown in the Port / Channel Select list box to the
desired value (f igure 3). Note: if the COM po rt you need
is not listed, reboot your PC.
It is important to specify which Detector is being used.
By default, 15.4_Sniffer.exe assumes that the
MACdongle detector is fitted. If either PICDEM-Z or
Pixie are fitted, uncheck the Detector Is MACdongle
menu item in the File menu. Failure to do this may
cause the Decoder firmware to hang.
If you have do not have a detector available, you can
import the sniffer log called SampleSniffLog.hex by
selecting Import... from the File menu. The file is in the
Sniffer development kit which may be downloaded from
www.flexipanel.com.
Figure 3. Setting the COM port
Operation
Scanning channels
To scan all 16 channels, press the Scan button (figure
3.) The scan will take 10 se conds or so. If any ZigBee
networks are detected, they will be displayed in the
upper window and scanning will automatically start on
the clearest channel (figure 4) .
Figure 4. Sniffing on 2440MHz and reporting energy
density (ED), number of PANs detected (PAN) and
packet strength (PS) on that channel.
Sniffing on a channel
To change the channel t hat is being sniffed, s imple click
on the channel box shown in the upper window. The
channel being scanned will be highlighted (figure 4).
To stop sniffing on any channels, click on the
highlighted channel box. It will cease to be highlighted
and sniffing will stop.
Frame View
Detected frames are shown in the frame view, which is
the main green area of the screen. They are color
coded according to the t ype of frame and the data layer:
Gray: PHY info