A critical analysis of research potential, challenges and future directives in industrial wireless sensor networks

In recent years, Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks (IWSNs) have emerged as an important research theme with applications spanning a wide range of industries including automation, monitoring, process control, feedback systems and automotive. Wide scope of IWSNs applications ranging from small production units, large oil and gas industries to nuclear fission control, enables a fast-paced research in this field. Though IWSNs offer advantages of low cost, flexibility, scalability, self-healing, easy deployment and reformation, yet they pose certain limitations on available potential and introduce challenges on multiple fronts due to their susceptibility to highly complex and uncertain industrial environments. In this paper a detailed discussion on design objectives, challenges and solutions, for IWSNs, are presented. A careful evaluation of industrial systems, deadlines and possible hazards in industrial atmosphere are discussed. The paper also presents a thorough review of the existing standards and industrial protocols and gives a critical evaluation of potential of these standards and protocols along with a detailed discussion on available hardware platforms, specific industrial energy harvesting techniques and their capabilities. The paper lists main service providers for IWSNs solutions and gives insight of future trends and research gaps in the field of IWSNs

Performance of DF Incremental Relaying with Energy Harvesting Relays in Underlay CRNs

In this paper, we analyze the throughput performance of incremental relaying using energy harvesting (EH) decode-and-forward (DF) relays in underlay cognitive radio networks (CRNs). The destination combines the direct and relayed signals when the direct link is in outage. From the derived closed-form expressions, we present an expression for the power-splitting parameter of the EH relay that optimizes the throughput performance. We demonstrate that relaying using EH DF relays results in better performance than direct signalling without a relay only when the destination combines the direct signal from the source with the relayed signal. Computer simulations demonstrate accuracy of the derived expressions