###### Abstract
It also has not been addressed yet in the performance analysis, which is necessary for better understating of the trade-offs of the encrypted communication corresponding to the performance metrics. Figure 1: Zigbee protocol stack. Thus, we conducted an extensive performance analysis of both the encrypted and unencrypted Zigbee communication in both indoor and outdoor environments while accounting for performance metrics, such as PDR, network lifetime, latency, throughput, link quality, and power consumption, by varying the networking parameters, such as baud rates, transmission distance, transmission power, experimental scenario, and hopping (single and multi-hop) of the communication. The primary contributions of the work include:  
* We analyzed the PDR, energy consumption, and network lifetime for the different transmission power levels of the XBee S2C module; evaluated the optimized power level based on the performance and trade-offs. * We developed an algorithm to measure the node lifetime and we verified the current consumption through an experimental testbed. * We analyzed link quality in terms of the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) for both indoor and outdoor environments with different transmission power levels and the number of hops. This presents a detailed study of how the tx power, network environment, and hopping impact the link quality. * Latency was analyzed for different baud rates and packet sizes in both indoor and outdoor environments with encrypted and unencrypted communication. This depicts the trade-offs among latency, encryption, multi-hopping, and packet sizes. * Throughput evaluation was performed via an experimental testbed at various baud rates to identify the trade-offs between packet size, encryption, and throughput at various indoor and outdoor scenarios. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: the background and related works are presented in Section 2; the experimental setup and procedures are depicted in Section 3; Section 4 presents the performance evaluation; and the paper is concluded in Section 5. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline \hline
**Networking Layer** & **Parameters** & **Zigbee Characterization** \\ \hline \multirow{6}{*}{PHY Layer} & Frequency Band & 2.4 GHz, 915 MHz, 868 MHz, \\ \cline{2-3}  & Throughput & 250 Kbps for 2.4 GHz \\  & & 40 Kbps for 915 MHz \\  & & 20 Kbps for 868 MHz \\ \cline{2-3}  & Modulation & BPSK, O-QPSK \\ \cline{2-3}  & Tx Power [16] & \(-\)3 to 10 dBm \\ \cline{2-3}  & Minimum receiver Sensitivity & \(-\)85 dBm \\ \cline{2-3}  & Physical Channels & 16 channels: 2.4 GHz \\  & Physical Channels & 10 Channels: 915 MHz \\  & & 1 Channel: 868 MHz \\ \cline{2-3}  & Channel Bandwidth & 2 MHz \\ \hline \multirow{6}{*}{MAC Layer} & Multiple Access Scheme & CSMA-CA, Slotted CSMA-CA \\ \cline{2-3}  & CRC length & 2 bytes \\ \cline{2-3}  & Identifiers & 16-bit short address \\ \cline{2-3}  & & 64-bit long address \\ \hline \multirow{6}{*}{NWK Layer} & Network Topology & Star, Tree, Mesh, \\ \cline{2-3}  & & Point-to-Point \\ \cline{2-3}  & Hopping & Single and Multi-hop \\ \cline{2-3}  & Device Type/Mode & Coordinator, Router, End \\ \cline{2-3}  & Networking Technology & PAN \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: PHY, MAC, and NWK layer characterization of Zigbee [9].