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Special Issue "Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks: Protocols and Applications"

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A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Sensor Networks".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 July 2020) | Viewed by 14446

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Seong-eun Yoo

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Guest Editor

Associate Professor, School of Computer and Communication Engineering, Daegu University, Gyeongsan 712-714, Korea
Interests: wireless sensor networks; industrial IoT; localization
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Taehong Kim

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Associate Professor, School of Information and Communication Engineering, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju, Chungbuk 28644, Korea
Interests: edge computing; container orchestration; Internet of Things; SDN/NFV; wireless sensor networks
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

With the help of technological advances and standardization activities, we are witnessing the growth of the wireless sensor network applications in many areas, such as home appliances, agriculture, transportation, and manufacturing. Recently, the adoption of WSNs in industrial areas has been increased due to matured technologies such as transceivers and protocols. Industrial wireless sensor networks require reliability, robustness, and timeliness in the information exchange between devices, and they need more sophisticated protocols that many researchers and developers are working on.

This Special Issue focuses on the latest research, application, and adoption of wireless sensor networks in industrial fields from the perspective of protocols and applications, requiring high reliability and real-time packet delivery.

In such a context, this Special Issue invites contributions in the following topics (though without being limited to them):

Protocols for industrial wireless sensor networks;
Wireless network control systems;
Real-time communications in IWSN
IWSN testbeds and applications such as smart factories;
Edge and fog computing for IWSN;
Any subjects relevant to IWSN.

Dr. Seong-eun Yoo
Dr. Taehong Kim
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Protocols for industrial wireless sensor networks
IWSN Standards such as IEEE 802.15.4, WirelessHART, and ISA100.11a
Real-time communications in IWSN
Wireless networked control systems (WNCS)
IWSN testbeds and applications such as smart factories

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Editorial

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Open AccessEditorial

Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks: Protocols and Applications

Seong-eun Yoo

and

Taehong Kim

Sensors 2020, 20(20), 5809; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20205809 - 14 Oct 2020

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1649

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks are penetrating our daily lives, and they are starting to be deployed even in an industrial environment. The research on such industrial wireless sensor networks (IWSNs) considers more stringent requirements of robustness, reliability, and timeliness in each network layer. This Special Issue presents the recent research result on industrial wireless sensor networks. Each paper in the special issue has unique contributions in the advancements of industrial wireless sensor network research and we expect each paper to promote the relevant research and the deployment of IWSNs. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks: Protocols and Applications)

Research

Jump to: Editorial

Open AccessArticle

ISA 100.11a Networked Control System Based on Link Stability

Heitor Florencio

Adrião Dória Neto

and

Daniel Martins

Sensors 2020, 20(18), 5417; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20185417 - 21 Sep 2020

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2205

Abstract

Wireless networked control systems (WNCSs) must ensure that control systems are stable, robust and capable of minimizing the effects of disturbances. Due to the need for a stable and secure WNCS, critical wireless network variables must be taken into account in the design. As wireless networks are composed of several links, factors that indicate the performances of these links can be used to evaluate the communication system in the WNCS. This work presents a wireless network control system composed of ISA 100.11a sensors, a network manager, a controller and a wired actuator. The system controls the liquid level in the tank of the coupled tank system. In order to assess the influence of the sensor link failure on the control loop, the controller calculates the link stability and chooses an alternative link in case of instability in the current link. Preliminary tests of WNCS performance were performed to determine the minimum stability value of the link that generates an error in the control loop. Finally, the tests of the control system based on link stability obtained excellent results. Even with disturbances in the network links, the control system error remained below the threshold. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks: Protocols and Applications)

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Open AccessArticle

Distributed Node Scheduling with Adjustable Weight Factor for Ad-hoc Networks

Wonseok Lee

Taehong Kim

and

Taejoon Kim

Sensors 2020, 20(18), 5093; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20185093 - 07 Sep 2020

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1493

Abstract

In this paper, a novel distributed scheduling scheme for an ad-hoc network is proposed. Specifically, the throughput and the delay of packets with different importance are flexibly adjusted by quantifying the importance as weight factors. In this scheme, each node is equipped with two queues, one for packets with high importance and the other for packets with low importance. The proposed scheduling scheme consists of two procedures: intra-node slot reallocation and inter-node reallocation. In the intra-node slot reallocation, self-fairness is adopted as a key metric, which is a composite of the quantified weight factors and traffic loads. This intra-node slot reallocation improves the throughput and the delay performance. Subsequently, through an inter-node reallocation algorithm adopted from LocalVoting (slot exchange among queues having the same importance), the fairness of traffics with the same importance is enhanced. Thorough simulations were conducted under various traffic load and weight factor settings. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can adjust packet delivery performance according to a predefined weight factor. Moreover, compared with conventional algorithms, the proposed algorithm achieves better performance in throughput and delay. The low average delay while attaining the high throughput ensures the excellent performance of the proposed algorithm. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks: Protocols and Applications)

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Open AccessArticle

Dynamic Reconfiguration of Cluster-Tree Wireless Sensor Networks to Handle Communication Overloads in Disaster-Related Situations

and

Sensors 2020, 20(17), 4707; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20174707 - 20 Aug 2020

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2509

Abstract

The development of flexible and efficient communication mechanisms is of paramount importance within the context of the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm. IoT has been used for industrial, commercial, and residential applications, and the IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee standard is one of the most suitable protocols for this purpose. This protocol is now frequently used to implement large-scale Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). In industrial settings, it is becoming increasingly common to deploy cluster-tree WSNs, a complex IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee-based peer-to-peer network topology, to monitor and control critical processes such as those related to oil or gas, mining, or certain specific chemicals. The remote monitoring of critical events for hazards or disaster detection in large areas is a challenging issue, since the occurrence of events in the monitored environment may severely stress the regular operation of the network. This paper proposes the Dynamic REconfiguration mechanism of cluster-Tree WSNs (DyRET), which is able to dynamically reconfigure large-scale IEEE 802.15.4 cluster-tree WSNs, and to assign communication resources to the overloaded branches of the tree based on the accumulated network load generated by each of the sensor nodes. A complete simulation assessment demonstrates the proposed mechanism’s efficiency, and the results show that it can guarantee the required quality of service level for the dynamic reconfiguration of cluster-tree networks. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks: Protocols and Applications)

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Open AccessArticle

EERS: Energy-Efficient Reference Node Selection Algorithm for Synchronization in Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks

Mahmoud Elsharief

Mohamed A. Abd El-Gawad

Haneul Ko

and

Sangheon Pack

Sensors 2020, 20(15), 4095; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20154095 - 23 Jul 2020

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 1711

Abstract

Time synchronization is an essential issue in industrial wireless sensor networks (IWSNs). It assists perfect coordinated communications among the sensor nodes to preserve battery power. Generally, time synchronization in IWSNs has two major aspects of energy consumption and accuracy. In the literature, the energy consumption has not received much attention in contrast to the accuracy. In this paper, focusing on the energy consumption aspect, we introduce an energy-efficient reference node selection (EERS) algorithm for time synchronization in IWSNs. It selects and schedules a minimal sequence of connected reference nodes that are responsible for spreading timing messages. EERS achieves energy consumption synchronization by reducing the number of transmitted messages among the sensor nodes. To evaluate the performance of EERS, we conducted extensive experiments with Arduino Nano RF sensors and revealed that EERS achieves considerably fewer messages than previous techniques, robust time synchronization (R-Sync), fast scheduling and accurate drift compensation for time synchronization (FADS), and low power scheduling for time synchronization protocols (LPSS). In addition, simulation results for a large sensor network of 450 nodes demonstrate that EERS reduces the whole number of transmitted messages by 52%, 30%, and 13% compared to R-Sync, FADS, and LPSS, respectively. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks: Protocols and Applications)

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Open AccessArticle

A Spatial Group-Based Multi-User Full-Duplex OFDMA MAC Protocol for the Next-Generation WLAN

and

Sensors 2020, 20(14), 3826; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20143826 - 09 Jul 2020

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 1897

Abstract

The Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) has become a dominant piece of technology to carry wireless traffic for Internet of Things (IoT). The next-generation high-density WLAN scenario is very suitable for the development trend of the industrial wireless sensor network. However, in the high-density deployed WLAN scenarios, the access efficiency is low due to severe collisions, and the interference is diffused due to the scattered locations of the parallel access stations (STAs), which results in low area throughput, i.e., low spatial reuse gain. A spatial group-based multi-user full-duplex orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) (GFDO) multiple access control (MAC) protocol is proposed. Firstly, the STAs in the network are divided into several spatial groups according to the neighbor channel sensing ability. Secondly, a two-level buffer state report (BSR) information collection mechanism based on P-probability is designed. Initially, intra-group STAs report their BSR information to the group header using low transmission power. After that, group headers report both their BSR information collected from their members and inter-group interference information to the access point (AP). Finally, AP schedules two spatial groups without mutual interference to carry on multi-user full duplex transmission on the subchannels in cascading mode. The closed-form formulas are theoretically derived, including the number of uplink STAs successfully collected by AP, the network throughput and area throughput under saturated traffic. The simulation results show that the theoretical analysis coincide with the simulation results. The system throughput of the GFDO protocol is 16.8% higher than that of EnFD-OMAX protocol. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks: Protocols and Applications)

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Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Adaptive Real-Time Routing Protocol for (m,k)-Firm in Industrial Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks

and

Sensors 2020, 20(6), 1633; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20061633 - 14 Mar 2020

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2049

Abstract

Many applications are able to obtain enriched information by employing a wireless multimedia sensor network (WMSN) in industrial environments, which consists of nodes that are capable of processing multimedia data. However, as many aspects of WMSNs still need to be refined, this remains a potential research area. An efficient application needs the ability to capture and store the latest information about an object or event, which requires real-time multimedia data to be delivered to the sink timely. Motivated to achieve this goal, we developed a new adaptive QoS routing protocol based on the (m,k)-firm model. The proposed model processes captured information by employing a multimedia stream in the (m,k)-firm format. In addition, the model includes a new adaptive real-time protocol and traffic handling scheme to transmit event information by selecting the next hop according to the flow status as well as the requirement of the (m,k)-firm model. Different from the previous approach, two level adjustment in routing protocol and traffic management are able to increase the number of successful packets within the deadline as well as path setup schemes along the previous route is able to reduce the packet loss until a new path is established. Our simulation results demonstrate that the proposed schemes are able to improve the stream dynamic success ratio and network lifetime compared to previous work by meeting the requirement of the (m,k)-firm model regardless of the amount of traffic. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks: Protocols and Applications)

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