Guest Editorial Special Section on New Perspectives on Wireless Communications in Automation: From Industrial Monitoring and Control to Cyber-Physical Systems

The papers in this special section focus on wireless communication for use in automation of control and cyber-physical systems. Wireless communication is becoming increasingly important for industrial automation and many solutions have started to appear on the market. However, most of the available solutions target monitoring applications with slow refresh rates and with the downlink designed for best-effort traffic, thus neglecting actuators. Critical communication applications are defined as applications that require high reliability, i.e., that data packets are delivered with very high probability within a certain deadline, to avoid serious consequences (bodily injury, human losses, severe environmental impact, or great financial loss). It is challenging to simultaneously provide low latencies (end-to-end delay) and high reliability, especially over wireless links, which are inherently unpredictable. Suitable solutions exist that work well in specific contexts.