Wireless FAQs

Why should I use wireless instruments?

What is the communication range between the transmitter and receiver?

How safe is a wireless instrumentation network against intrusions?

How reliable is a wireless instrumentation network?

What are the structures or topologies of an industrial wireless network?

Does ABB support integration of the wireless instruments to the existing DCS?

Simply put, wireless instrumentation networks can be installed at a significantly reduced cost and are quicker to deploy.

Wireless products and solutions for process automation nowadays offer flexibility and scalability at a cost which is a fraction of the equivalent wired ones. The costs savings related to infrastructure equipment, engineering, drawings, installation, commissioning, documentation and maintenance related to the investment in wireless system outweigh the investment in wired systems. In addition, the use of wireless instruments has led to new applications in the field of wireless process automation which in the past were subjected to economical, physical and technological barriers.

Depends….the communication range between two neighbor nodes depends on the transmitted power signal, path losses, interference and the receiver sensitivity. Typically the range is in the order of tens of meters to about 200m in the ideal case.

Very…The security methods used by the standardized protocols, such as, WirelessHART include: authentication which specifies which devices are allowed to join the network, 128-bit AES-based encryption of data, and integrity checking which establishes that messages have not been tampered with.

The security managers are an integral part of the overall wireless system design and are software components that manage secure operation of the network by controlling access and deploying security keys, data encryption and integrity checking and device security.

Very…..Industrial wireless instrumentation protocols, such as, WirelessHART and ISA100.11a have been designed ground-up taking this requirement into consideration. Reliability has been addressed in these protocols by simultaneously utilizing time, frequency and spatial diversity techniques. For instance, testing has proven that in a correctly installed WirelessHART network, data reliability (i.e. data reaches destination) is almost 99.999 %. The simple rules to follow are

• Each device must have at least 3 neighbors

• 20 % of the devices must be connected directly to the gateway

Practically there are two topologies to choose from: star and multi-hop mesh. The star topology is suitable for small scale installations where the nodes are relatively in close distance and in line of sight to the gateway. The mesh topology is used for medium to large installations and allows the communication of the nodes to the gateway even if there is not direct line of sight. This is possible as each node in the mesh can relay data to the neighbor nodes. Thus, if a node is far away from the gateway its broadcasted signal can reach the gateway through the intermediate nodes and vise-versa. Each node in WirelessHART network has the potential to operate as a router.

In short, even if the communication between two neighbor nodes is limited in range but nonetheless the use of multi-hop network enables the network designer to extend the reach of the plant network.

ABB has a complete solution that includes integration into System 800xA, the world’s largest installed control system base. ABB supports seamless integration of WirelessHART instruments into the system which allows you to use a wireless system and network just as you would a wired one. With preconfigured device libraries and data communication blocks, getting your wireless devices up and running in the control system is rapid and simple.

What interference issues may arise if the production facility uses Wi-Fi?

How can I add new wireless instruments in the future?

Are there instruments which support ATEX Zone 0?

How long do the batteries last?

How is signal jamming dealt with?

Many industrial wireless technologies use the 2.4GHz ISM band which is generally available globally. However, it is important to understand that the availability of channels and transmission power may vary between countries.

To ensure coexistence amongst the co-located WirelessHART and Wi-Fi networks, which operate over the same frequency band, certain bands can be blacklisted to avoid application degradation. In short, interference can lead to an overall decrease in network throughput, and can compromise QoS of a network application. However, collectively the use of adaptive frequency hopping, transmission power control and whitelist of active channels can improve coexistence and can lead to an effective radio resource management.

Easy…much easier than wired. Scalability is one of the features of wireless technology. As soon as the new instrument is physically placed where is needed it is ready for operation. A minor configuration is needed at the gateway (such as the need to input the network and join key) and start the join procedure to “identify” the new instrument and that’s it.

Traditional single-sink wireless networks have limited scalability whereas; multi-sink wireless networks can reach high levels of scalability.

Yes, this is possible. ABB offer wireless products which are ATEX certified to operate in Zone 0, such as WiMon100 vibration. In the future, ABB’s pressure and temperature products will be certified for Zone 1. Feel free to contact us for more information.

The battery life depends on the energy consumption needs of the instrument. Typically the wireless instruments are expected to last many years in the field. The challenge here is to keep the battery consumption to minimum in order to increase network lifetime. In industrial applications, the sensing and communication are both high power consumers. Industrial sensors tend to have higher power consumption as compared to non-industrial sensors. Furthermore, power consumption is linked to sensors and their utilization, the device type and the communication protocol it utilizes.

In industrial wireless protocols aimed at wireless process automation, features such as smart publishing, use of deep sleep modes and time synchronized communication are adopted to reduce the onboard battery drain. Furthermore, energy harvesting techniques are being deployed to address the issue linked to the node lifetime.

The breakthrough of energy harvesting:

ABB’s WiTemp with energy harvester is the first of its kind product which has a fully integrated thermal energy harvester. Utilizing the temperature gradient between the process and the ambient atmosphere, the device can be fully powered by the harvester thereby using the battery as a backup. Get in touch with us to see the full power of the harvester.

Spread spectrum techniques are adopted to avoid signal jamming. In such techniques, the signal occupies a bandwidth in excess of the minimum necessary to transmit the information. It is accomplished by means of a code which is independent of source data. Its ability to resist jamming and interference are amongst the main reasons for the use of spread spectrum techniques. The widely used techniques for spread spectrum include Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) and Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS). The industrial wireless standard for process automation, i.e. WirelessHART, concurrently uses these techniques. Therefore, it makes it difficult to block such a signal using narrow band jammers. Furthermore, if someone brings in a narrowband jammer then it can be identified and removed. The use of active black channel concept as supported by instrumentation wireless enables the network manager to dynamically adjust radio resources and avoid channels which are prone to stability issues.

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