Control over WirelessHART network

It has been observed that the history of industrial process control development is also a history of reducing the number of wires necessary for effecting the control. Control over wireless is the end of this evolution. Wireless control faces a lot of challenges such as security, reliability, feedback latency, battery longevity, etc. In this paper we report some experience with implementing control over wireless. The platform we use is the WirelessHART mesh network, the first international industrial wireless control standard. We describe a full implementation of the standard and study the issues and solutions in its application. Our data suggest that WirelessHART technology is up to the challenge of wireless control.