Camera Assisted Field Strength Measurement System for Industrial Environments

Today, already 80% of all innovations in the area of production technology are based on the integration of mechanical and communication and information technologies[1]. Therefore it will become more and more important to integrate new communication technologies fast and efficiently into both, the production planning process and the production process itself. Particularly, if wireless technologies are deployed on the shop floor, this is not an easy task. The most significant question of the customer is: Will the wireless system reliably operate in my own particular environment? In order to clarify this question, electromagnetic simulation tools can be used to predict the signal coverage. But it still is difficult or nearly impossible to exactly predict fading effects due to multipath propagation in a complex industrial environment. Therefore a camera assisted field strength measurement system with spatial resolution in the mm-range was developed to measure the signal coverage or interference signals of coexisting wireless systems. In this paper the propertiesof the developed camera assisted tracking system are described and an overview of possible applications is provided.