Abstract: Traditional setting-out methods always affect construction schedule because of inconvenient communication between setting-out person and the observer, so the paper proposed a design scheme of ZigBee wireless transmission system, and described overall structure and design of hardware and software of the system. The system uses a star network structure, sends difference between setting-out point and target point from coordinator node connected with total station instrument to RFD node held by setting-out person, and finally displays the results on LCD. The tests showed that the system can realize real-time data transmission with low error rate.