Analysis of Industrial Networks Using ...

Nowadays, Industrial Ethernet and Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) have entered strongly into the fields of control and automation. Data acquisition products offer many options regarding the networking of these devices using the above techniques. This paper analyzes the performance of different Industrial WLAN standards (IEEE802.11b, IEEE802.11a and IEEE802.11g) by means of simulation using OPNET package as the network simulation tool. Detailed simulation models of the industrial nodes (sensors & actuators) were built and the effect of different parameters such as WLAN speed, WLAN modes, WLAN topology, traffic intensity…etc. on the system performance were examined. The goal of this study is to determine the maximum limits of the system in order to serve as a real time system suitable for various control and automation tasks.