ABSTRACT
The current solutions for the industrial wireless networks are focused on two distinct groups. The first group is related to the wireless local area networks (WLANs), whose technologies are variations of the IEEE 802.11 standard. The second group is represented by wireless personal area networks (WPANs), whose solutions are variations developed by the IEEE 802.15 work group and other standardization commissions such as the International Society of Automation (ISA) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). The wireless networks for industrial automation–process automation (WIA-PA) standard follows the trends of industrial network technologies to adopt wireless infrastructure. The data link layer (DLL) defined in the WIA-PA standard was designed to provide real-time, secure, and reliable communications. It is based on the IEEE 802.15.4 DLL with the improvement of some properties. Industrial applications are known as a very conservative environment where reliability, interoperability, and security issues are always required.
