Towards Industrial Ultra-Wideband Networks: Experiments for Machine Vibration Monitoring

We discuss the potential of ultra-wideband (UWB) technology for realizing use cases in industry 4.0 and demonstrate the implementation of an UWB sensor network with off-the-shelf transceivers for machine vibration monitoring. We propose a flexible medium access layer tailored for industrial sensing and show how the choice of its parameters is affected by the propagation environment and hardware constraints. Our real-world experiments reveal that links up to 20 meters can be achieved in industrial environments with an average packet loss rate in the order of 10^-6 for typical links. A comparison with a commercial vibration monitoring system based on IEEE 802.15.4 spread spectrum shows that UWB attains a twenty-times higher throughput for similar link ranges.