Wireless Sensors for Industrial Automation:
Manufacturing automation:
Wireless device networking is experiencing equally large interest in manufacturing automation. Eliminating the need to install and maintain physical cables significantly reduces the cost associated with new installations, as well as the deployment of incremental data points as the installation grows or changes. Hard-to-wire assets such as rotating machinery can now be easily reached and integrated into the network, and assets can just as easily be relocated or reconfigured, without the time and cost required for re-cabling.
Process monitoring:
Process monitoring provides plant operators with essential information on plant productivity, requiring sensor solutions that can continuously monitor process performance and identify deficiencies in real-time. The prospect of a wireless interface for these sensing points holds particular appeal for plant operators, allowing them to extend monitoring to previously unreachable areas and to deploy additional measuring points at a small fraction of the cost of an equivalent wired point. Naturally, a prerequisite for success is the ability of the wireless network to deliver high reliability in harsh industrial environments. As many deployments have shown, wireless device networks possessing mesh networking, channel hopping and time synchronization capabilities meet this crucial test.