Implementation Of The WirelessHART MAC Layer In The OPNET Simulator

Abstract:Networks constitute with wireless sensors have significant advantages over networks with cables, such as reduced deployment cost, easier to installation and easier to maintenance and reconfigure. With the development of technology, WSN will be more extensively used in industrial application. Industrial automation control is an important application of process control. Comparing with other kind of applications of process control, industrial automation control has more stringent requirements. For example they need stricter time requirement and more reliable communications among many devices for the safety of humans and industrial tools. Communication in industrial environment also need to persistent more interferences and obstacles than other kinds of environment. WirelessHART is the first international standard for industry process automation approved by IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) in September2007for its advantage of reliability, flexibility and compatibility. WirelessHART is also supported by many companies, such as Emerson, Siemens and ABB. Based on the study of WirelessHART standard, this thesis set up a primary implementation of the MAC layer of WirelessHART standard. To our best knowledge, this is the first comprehensive implementation of WirelessHART using OPNET simulator. The implementation has been evaluated rational. And some improvement of current implementation and standard have also been proposed and implemented. To simulate the environment of industrial transmission environment, this paper sets up a series of transmission models for WirelessHART network. The cooperation of industrial transmission model with WirelessHART model makes the result of simulation more rational and in detail. The whole outcome of this paper could give further support for future study.