Workshop Networks Integration Using Mobile Intelligence in Smart Factories

In a smart factory environment, a much larger amount of data is transmitted in the workshop networks bringing big challenges to data transfer capability and energy usage efficiency. In the workshop, two main networks (i.e., wired/wireless fieldbus networks and wireless sensor networks) are usually used to collect and transmit data separately; thus, this work proposes to integrate these two networks by also taking advantage of the existing mobile intelligences in smart factories, such as automatic guided vehicles, to implement a novel data and materials delivery scheme well suited for modern industrial wireless sensor networks (IWSNs). In particular, data collected by sensor nodes can be transferred to nearby fieldbus nodes first; then all data in fieldbus nodes can be handled according to different priorities. High-priority data are still transferred to the central base station through fieldbus while low-priority data are delivered through mobile intelligence by solving a materials and data delivery problem. Simulation experiments demonstrate how the proposed approach, running within the IWSN, significantly increases data delivery efficiency, also achieving better energy usage by five times compared to separate networks without any mobile intelligence support.