WISA vs. WLAN: Co-existence challenges: - A tool for WLAN performance testing

Abstract

Wireless Interface for Sensors and Actuators (WISA) is ABB's proprietary wireless protocol for industrial automation on the factory floor. It operates in the 2.4GHz ISM band. Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs), which typically occupy a fixed portion of the same 2.4GHz ISM band, are becoming more and more common on the factory floor. This raises a question of co-existence and how the performance of traffic over WLAN is affected when interfered by WISA. This report is a result of the development of a software tool and assembly of hardware that can aid the future testing of the effect WISA has on nearby WLANs. Together with the explanation of the usage of this software tool, this report will also investigate different arrangements of hardware components that are used to demonstrate and test the functionality of this new software tool. The software tool and the hardware components enable the measurement of important traffic metrics between two computers that communicate over a WLAN. The hardware components include a WISA Base Station (BS) that is configurable through the software tool and is used to cause interference on the WLAN.