A High-Performance Wireless Sensor Node for Industrial Control Applications

In this paper we present the design of a modular wireless sensor node for industrial control applications. The project seeks to demonstrate the feasibility of wireless communication between fixed and moving parts of industrial machines, which impose challenging latency requirements on the communication link. Other important requirements are in terms of processing capability, low power consumptions and modularity, which cannot be fulfilled by existing hardware. Therefore a complete new platform has been designed, including a high-performance ARM microntroller, a WiMedia compliant radio module, a general-purpose sensor connector and a Programmable System on Chip (PSoC). The ARM microntroller embeds a high preprocessing capability within the sensor node, while the WiMedia radio, that sets our platform apart from other existing solutions, allows to have a very low communication latency. The software architecture of the sensor node is based on eCos, an embedded, configurable and real-time operating system. Its realtime nature guarantees to fulfill the latency requirements at software side, and its high configurability enables to easily adapt the node to various types of industrial machines. A complete set of drivers has been developed to port the new platform to the operating system, in particular as for the radio module, the sensor, and the power management. Our platform has finally been tested with an industrial-like application, proving the feasibility of controlling an automatic machine with a wireless system.