Implementing ISA-100.11a

Abstract

The International Society of Automation (ISA) released ISA-100.11a on September 9, 2010. ISA-100.11a is an open wireless industrial sensor network standard based on the IEEE 802.15.4 low-rate wireless personal area network PHY and MAC specifications, and is aimed at process control and related automation. There are few available ISA-100.11a products, and only one compliant software protocol stack exists. This work is done to try and change this, by starting the implementation of an open-source ISA-100.11a protocol stack, as well as a hardware device.This thesis builds on the authors own prestudy, where the ISA-100.11a standard document was explored and a more accessible overview over the standard created, and a hardware platform was evaluated as a possible candidate for the implementation but fell through.This thesis evaluates another hardware platform; the ATmega128RFA1 combined microcontroller/IEEE 802.15.4 transceiver from Atmel, and finds it up for the job. The implementation of an ISA-100.11a protocol stack is started. The software is split in two parts: - A 100% portable part containing most of the ISA-100.11a-defined functionality, intended for use on a wide range of platforms. This portable protocol stack module is implemented to a level where quite a bit of the ISA-100.11a specified functionality can be demonstrated.- A platform specific part, which acts as a driver layer between the portable protocol stack module and the underlying hardware/software platform. A preliminary version of the platform specific part for the ATmega128RFA1 device is implemented, which can be used together with the portable protocol stack module.This thesis describes the development strategy and process, describes the structure, interfaces and mechanisms of the implemented parts, and demonstrates the product.Finally, the product is concluded to be a good start on the process of creating an open-source implementation of the protocol stack.A journal article linked with the open-source release of the source code is planned.