A comparison of wired and wireless technologies for control applications

Abstract

[Abstract] Wireless technologies are already mature in noncritical applications. However, the use of this kind of technologies in control applications is, still, under research. There are several reasons for the reluctance to use this kind of technologies such as the lack of reliability, finding the optimal sampling period not to disturb the control algorithm, the introduction of message delays, higher message dropouts (e.g. caused by interferences) or the power supply at the devices. Most of these issues are related to the Quality of Service (QoS) that wireless technologies provide. This article evaluates the use of wireless technologies to be used in control applications when compared with wired technologies. The article draws some conclusions and recommendations for building control applications. In particular, the problem of building wireless networked control systems (WNCS) is addressed by means of XBee technology for communication and LabVIEW for processing the acquired data, implementing the control algorithm and sending the control signal to the actuators. These tools were selected based on the low power consumption of the XBee devices and the flexibilityof LabVIEW for building complex control applications.