Performance Evaluation of an IEEE 802.11g Network in an Industrial Environment

In the industrial domain, wireless networks are among the most recommended, due to their low deployment cost, great flexibility, and by being less invasive to the environment. In the literature, little emphasis is given to the application of traditional IEEE 802.11a/b/g standards into industrial environments. We have evaluated the communication performance of an 802.11g network infrastructure within a thermoelectric powerplant. Three metrics were considered during our analysis: packet loss rate, transfer rate, and response time. Tests were conducted to evaluate the communication between different points inside the engine room and a point located in the administration room. To get a more realistic scenario, the experiments were performed in working days of the thermoelectric power plant. The network performance did not suffer significant degradation, even under electromagnetic interference and other intrinsic characteristics of such harsh environment. We concluded suggesting the addition of a few more access points to the engine room in order to improve the signal quality and thus the communication.