Performance assessment of WirelessHART technology for its implementation in dense reader environment

The use of wireless technology for industrial automation and process control has become a favoured choice as it reduces the hassle of cable installation and maintenance cost. The WirelessHART protocol is the first open and interoperable industrial wireless sensor network standard, that is based on Time Division Multiple Access and channel hopping as a Medium Access Control protocol. Industrial wireless sensor networks must support reliable and real-time data collection in harsh environments. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the fidelity of implementing WirelessHART in surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensor network, which is a Dense Reader Environment intended for industrial monitoring. Comparison between the existing industrial monitoring applications has been deliberated, for which their future perspectives have been extensively discussed. Three possible network topologies for WirelessHART network are simulated in proposing the optimal network design for the SAW sensor network. In fact, the proposed system configurations are also tested with RF transmitters and receivers for better understanding on WirelessHART and its application in a dense interrogators network.