Industrial wireless sensor and actuator networks in industry 4.0: Exploring requirements, protocols, and challenges—A MAC survey

Abstract

SummaryThe vision to connect everyday physical objects to the Internet promises to create the Internet of Things (IoT), which is expected to integrate the diverse technologies such as sensors, actuators, radio frequency identification, communication technologies, and Internet protocols. Thus, IoT promises to transfer traditional industry to advance digital industry known as the Industry 4.0.At the core of the Industry 4.0 are the wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and wireless sensor and actuator networks (WSANs) that led to the development of industrial wireless sensor networks (IWSNs) and industrial wireless sensor and actuator networks (IWSANs). These networks play a central role of connecting machines, parts, products, and humans and create a diverse set of new applications to support intelligent and autonomous decision making.The IWSAN is a promising technology for numerous industrial applications because of their several potential benefits such as simple deployment, low cost, less complexity, and mobility support. However, despite such benefits, they impose several unique challenges at different layers of the protocol stack when deploying them for various monitoring and control applications in the Industry 4.0. In this article, we explore IWSAN, its applications, requirements, challenges, and solutions in the context of industrial control applications. Our main focus is on the medium access control (MAC) layer that can be exploited to satisfy such requirements. Our discussion presents extensive background study of the MAC schemes and it reviews the MAC protocols of the existing wireless standards and technologies. A number of application‐specific MAC protocols developed to support industrial applications, which are not part of these standards, are also elaborated. We rationalize to what extent the existing standards and protocols help in solving such requirements as laid down by the Industry 4.0. In the end, we emphasize on existing challenges and present important future directions.