Improvement on the Radio Link Reliability of Wireless M2M Application in Industrial Environment

Abstract: The study presented in this thesis is focused on the investigation of wireless application in industrial environment. The objective of this work is to provide an insight on the development of the wireless machine to machine (M2M) application, and a systematic approach for improving the application reliability on radio link level by end users. As a specific case, ABB Robotics’ Remote Service concept is examined to check whether the selection of cellular technology as its wireless access method and the choice of standard radio link components are able to satisfy the application requirement under different circumstances. Several modifications of the radio link components and topologies, e.g. repeater system, combiner, etc, are proposed for the enhancement of radio link reliability. Theoretical evaluations of these options are based on detailed radio link calculation and MATLAB simulation using propagation model dedicated for industrial environment. Furthermore, on site test is carried out to validate the theoretical evaluations. The M2M market investigation is also included in the task, in order to select the most cost-effective components from different suppliers. While walking through the radio link optimization process of the specific case, necessary information and knowledge common to all wireless M2M application are explained. In the end, in addition to a guide line for installation and other supporting documents regarding to the Remote Service, some rules of thumb available for the radio link optimization in all kinds of industrial environments are generalized and presented in the form of a flowchart, which can be beneficial for those support engineers of the application provider, who are not necessarily experts in wireless technology.