Wireless
Industrial Use of Bluetooth
Industrial plants consist of many devices interconnected in different ways. It might be simple data collection units (I/Os) without any built-in intelligence, more intelligent devices (for example sensors with built-in intelligence, single-loop controllers or programmable controllers) and supervisory systems (used as HMI, for data logging and supervisory control).
These types of devices are interconnected using many different communication protocols and medias, which may in some cases be replaced with Bluetooth wireless technology.
This1. Serial cable replacement. Replace the serial cable of today with a wireless
Bluetooth link.
2. Combine Bluetooth and Internet technologies. Make use of the extra CPU power
added by the Bluetooth implementation to give an added value to the device for
example a built-in WEB-based user interface.
3. Industrial Access Points. Access Points are used to connect several Bluetooth
devices to the traditional wired network. The wired network might be an IP-based
network (for example Ethernet) or an industrial fieldbus (for example Controlnet,
Profibus or others).
4. Wireless sensors and actuators. Connect the devices that are closest to the physical
process (sensors, actuators and simple analog/digital IO-devices) to supervisory
systems using Bluetooth.
The four categories interrelate with each other to create a full system combining wireless and
wired networks. The different use cases will be described using real-life configuration
examples.
Please download the whitepaper to continue reading.