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Improving the resilience of wireless networks in industry environments within the project Gemimeg-II

28.10.2020

Within the project Gemimeg-II “Secure and Robust Calibrated Measurement Systems for the Digital Transformation” funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi), the 13 partner institutions aim at developing reliable quality standards for communication of digital data, information and certificates. In this framework the PTB department “High Frequency and Fields” performs measurements of channel and signal characteristics of wireless sensor networks located in industry environments.

 

 

 

Wireless sensor networks based on local 5G or WLAN networks are becoming more and more relevant in industrial production and are used for secure and reliable transmission of measurement data, calibration information and control commands with minimum latency. Here, millimeter waves, which have only rarely been used for communication applications so far, are used together with new smart antenna systems (Figure 1). The performance of these wireless networks depends on the successful implementation of safety from interception and disturbances and of coexistence with other wireless transmissions in industry environments that exhibit difficult propagation conditions for radio waves. Industry environments are dominated by strong reflections from metallic walls and installations, and by strong electromagnetic interference signals from converters and motors and Doppler shift due to moving machine parts. In order to improve the resilience of wireless networks and to optimize the performance in such problematic environments, channel and signal properties will be measured in typical industrial environments. From the acquired measurement data, the correlations with quality of service (QoS) parameters such as failure probability, data rate and latency are to be deduced in order to optimize network architecture and protocols for the propagation conditions under these special conditions.

 Planar 4x4 Patch Antenna Array with electronic beam steering capability

Figure 1: Planar 4x4 Patch Antenna Array with electronic beam steering capability at 28 GHz

 

 

 

Department 2.2 “High Frequency and Fields”