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In a typical closed loop industrial control scenario, sensors and actuators are deployed in the area of concern in a desired topology. Periodically or based on the events, the sensors send their measurements to the central controller, which then makes decisions and sends them to the actuators for implementation. Although currently sensors and actuators are connected to the central controller via a wired configuration in most of the factories, the fourth industrial revolution on the roadmap, known as Industry 4.0, calls for a migration of the communication networks from wired to wireless for the purpose of increasing the flexibility and freedom in moving machinery and also reducing the expenditure for the infrastructure.
Such a transition, however, imposes challenging requirements in terms of latency as well as reliability for the wireless technologies since the factorial automation systems are highly sensitive to any signal delays or distortions. Traditional wireless technologies are mainly driven by the broadband communications and often inefficient for ultra-reliable and low latency communications. There is general consensus that some fundamental change in the transmission protocols is necessary to satisfy the stringent latency and reliability requirements imposed by the future wireless industrial automation.
One key observation we make is that in practice, each task in the factory is in general assigned to a group of devices, e.g., robots or 3D printers, who work in close proximity to each other and thus can potentially form a device-to-device (D2D) network for pear-to-pear communications. We have devised some novel protocol to achieve ultra-reliable and low latency communications by utilizing the reliable D2D networks.
Publications:
- L. Liu, and W. Yu, “A D2D-based protocol for ultra-reliable wireless communications for industrial automation,” IEEE Trans. Wireless Commum., vol. 17, no. 8, pp. 5045-5058, Aug. 2018.
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