Drives & Controls June 2022

30 n COMMUNICATIONS June 2022 www.drivesncontrols.com Going unwired can unlock vast potential I n situations where it’s difficult to hard- wire industrial operations to hit time-to- market targets, industrial wireless LANs (WLANs) offer an attractive alternative to traditional wired Ethernet LANs. Indeed, recent advances in wireless technology have contributed to industrial WLANs becoming widespread in automotive plants, warehouses and transportation systems, among others, where automated equipment is required that is constantly moving or difficult to wire. For instance, you can use WLAN technology to deploy automated forklifts in smart warehouses or overhead transfer systems to increase efficiency and productivity, making the best use of limited manpower. With so much potential waiting to be unlocked by cutting free fromwires, it’s no wonder that industrial WLAN applications have become so popular in recent years. The market is expected to be worth nearly $40bn by 2026. But going wireless isn’t always a clear-cut choice. Even if you’ve decided on a wireless LAN, how do you choose the right system for your requirements? Unleashing possibilities Industrial wireless LANs can extend connectivity beyond traditional physical limits, unleashing new possibilities. However, engineers may hesitate to embrace wireless applications due to several hurdles. For example, how do you confirm that a network is indeed connected when wireless connections are invisible? And how do you troubleshoot when these invisible connections go down? Such concerns are more relevant than ever because IIoT applications require systems to be connected into a single converged network. Any point of failure can be fatal for the entire network. Besides planning your wireless network thoroughly, here are some key criteria to help choosing industrial WLAN devices, and some suggestions for how to address common concerns. Industrial WLAN devices require specialised technologies to establish and ensure reliable networks. This is because wireless connection quality can be affected by many issues, including radio frequency interference, incorrect antenna configuration, and variable signal strengths over long distances. Failing to design your system to tackle such issues can result in unstable communications, or even permanently damage your devices and result in a complete shutdown of your systems. In addition, constantly moving equipment requires that you give extra attention to roaming requirements. For example, even if you have a strong wireless signal on your AP, moving devices to a different location may require a more powerful signal, resulting in slower Wi-Fi connections or even network failures. Because slow or failed connections are unacceptable in industrial environments, consider using advanced technologies that can achieve millisecond-level roaming to ensure reliable connections. Whether you are implementing a wireless network for the first time or have numerous WLAN deployments under your belt, you will want to choose easy-to-use technologies. Although wireless connections can make constructing network infrastructures more convenient, network set-up and long-term maintenance can also have a big impact on the user experience. When configuring devices during the initial set-up stage for deploying or maintaining a network, software tools can save you significant time and effort. Once the networks are up and running, such tools can help you to configure your devices easily and find the best Wi-Fi channels to use in your environment. They can also help keep your wireless connections stable and take the headache out of network administration. Protocol compatibility WLANs can be deployed in various industrial applications including AGVs (automatic guided vehicles) and forklifts in logistics systems. Such systems require devices such as sensors and PLCs to determine the location of the moving vehicles. For safety reasons, it is essential to ensure seamless communications between the PLCs and control centres. When industrial equipment such as PLCs connect to wireless clients, a common issue is whether the wireless client device can support industrial protocols such as Profinet. To ensure seamless industrial protocol communications, you need to consider: n layer 2 transparency over the WLAN; and n communication latency that meets the requirements of your application. These criteria have been distilled from years of experience in enabling industrial connectivity for customers around the world. To learn more about industrial IEEE 802.11n wireless AP/bridge/clients specifically designed to overcome the challenges of industrial applications, you can visit the literature section of the Moxa website (www.moxa.com ). n Wireless networks are becoming increasingly popular for industrial applications. But they carry risks. Oliver Wang, product marketing manager for edge connectivity and computing at Moxa, offers advice on how to ensure that your wireless LANs operate reliably. There are several potential issues that you need to take into account when planning and installing wireless industrial networks