Case study of WSN as a replacement for SCADA

Abstract

The increasing interconnectivity of SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) networks has exposed them to a wide range of network security problems. Also in that case WSN (Wireless Sensor Networks, which is a new computing paradigm that emerged from the fusion of the SCADA systems and Ad hoc networks technologies, have gained the advantage over SCADA due to its simplicity and the ad-hoc nature of the network. This paper provides an overview of all the issues that are involved in strengthening the interconnectivity of SCADA networks and how the WSN has gained the advantage as a solution for SCADA. The paper describes the general architecture of WSN and SCADA networks and the properties of some of the commonly used SCADA communication protocols. This paper presents an overview of challenges in the design and implementation of WSNs. It summarizes the potential challenges that influence the WSNs design. Also this paper proposes an example solution to interconnect such environments using low cost and customizable sensor nodes which each has the computational power built in.