Reliability Analysis and Field Measurements for Industrial Wireless Networks

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Electronic instrumentation and control networks are used extensively at petroleum refining facilities.Traditionally, these networks have used wired communications. However, running these wires is expensiveboth due to the run lengths and safety shielding required. Using wireless communications significantly reducesthis cost but the challenge is ensuring that the wireless network provides the same reliability as a wired one.One way to achieve this is to use mesh networking techniques where nodes close to the network access pointrelay packets from nodes that are further away. Spartan Controls offers a portfolio of WirelessHARTcompliant wireless instrumentation and control products that have this mesh networking capability. Thesenetworks can be deployed within complex facilities like refineries or used to connect remotely located wellsites in the field.The purpose of this grant is to first support a campaign that will utilize software defined radios to measure thequality of WirelessHART links at remote field sights. Using statistical methods to analyze these measurementswill develop models that will more accurately predict WirelessHART coverage in remote field locations. Thisgrant will also support the use of graph theory fundamentals to determine how best to design a meshWirelessHART network. These design methods will be translated in to rule-of-thumb type guidelines that areeasy for field technicians to follow.