Wireless networks in industrial environments: state of the art and issues

Wireless is everywhere nowadays and WLAN (i.e. 802.11 standard family) has became used by almost any communications devices in the mass market. The recent achievements in the fields of modulation techniques, such as Spread Spectrum, coding methods, such as Turbocodes, CDMA2000, and frequencies allocation methods, such as OFDM and Frequency Hopping, has pushed the growing uses of reliable and low-cost wireless technologies. Among them the last standards are: IEEE 802.11 family (i.e. WiFi), HyperLAN and HyperLAN2, IEEE 802.15 (i.e. WPAN), IEEE 802.16 (i.e. WiMAX)… However, the industrial environments are not taken into consideration in the design of those standards, because its harsh constraints has specific characteristics (reliability, interferences with existing equipments, multi-path propagation, low-power consumption, real-time reconfiguration, security…) that need specific requirements and eventually standards. This paper will intent to give an overview of the wireless technologies and discusses the current and future possible technologies for the uses in the industrial environments (power plants and stations, factories, industrial buildings, automotive…). Our current works showed us that there is no perfect technology by it-self but the best trade-off solution is a hybrid architecture combining the right wired and wireless technologies.1st IFIP International Conference on Ad-Hoc NetWorkingRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Wireless networks in industrial environments: state of the art and issues

Wireless is everywhere nowadays and WLAN (i.e. 802.11 standard family) has became used by almost any communications devices in the mass market. The recent achievements in the fields of modulation techniques, such as Spread Spectrum, coding methods, such as Turbocodes, CDMA2000, and frequencies allocation methods, such as OFDM and Frequency Hopping, has pushed the growing uses of reliable and low-cost wireless technologies. Among them the last standards are: IEEE 802.11 family (i.e. WiFi), HyperLAN and HyperLAN2, IEEE 802.15 (i.e. WPAN), IEEE 802.16 (i.e. WiMAX)… However, the industrial environments are not taken into consideration in the design of those standards, because its harsh constraints has specific characteristics (reliability, interferences with existing equipments, multi-path propagation, low-power consumption, real-time reconfiguration, security…) that need specific requirements and eventually standards. This paper will intent to give an overview of the wireless technologies and discusses the current and future possible technologies for the uses in the industrial environments (power plants and stations, factories, industrial buildings, automotive…). Our current works showed us that there is no perfect technology by it-self but the best trade-off solution is a hybrid architecture combining the right wired and wireless technologies.1st IFIP International Conference on Ad-Hoc NetWorkingRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Evolving an efficient and effective off-the-shelf computing infrastructure for schools in rural areas of South Africa

Upliftment of rural areas and poverty alleviation are priorities for development in South Africa. Information and knowledge are key strategic resources for social and economic development and ICTs act as tools to support them, enabling innovative and more cost effective approaches. In order for ICT interventions to be possible, infrastructure has to be deployed. For the deployment to be effective and sustainable, the local community needs to be involved in shaping and supporting it. This study describes the technical work done in the Siyakhula Living Lab (SLL), a long-term ICT4D experiment in the Mbashe Municipality, with a focus on the deployment of ICT infrastructure in schools, for teaching and learning but also for use by the communities surrounding the schools. As a result of this work, computing infrastructure was deployed, in various phases, in 17 schools in the area and a “broadband island” connecting them was created. The dissertation reports on the initial deployment phases, discussing theoretical underpinnings and policies for using technology in education as well various computing and networking technologies and associated policies available and appropriate for use in rural South African schools. This information forms the backdrop of a survey conducted with teachers from six schools in the SLL, together with experimental work towards the provision of an evolved, efficient and effective off-the-shelf computing infrastructure in selected schools, in order to attempt to address the shortcomings of the computing infrastructure deployed initially in the SLL. The result of the study is the proposal of an evolved computing infrastructure model for use in rural South African schools