Credit: CTL

In May 2024, the NIST Industrial Wireless Team led by Rick Candell organized and chaired a special session on Performance Assurance of Industrial Wireless Systems at the 7^th IEEE International Conference on Industrial Cyber-physical Systems (ICPS) in St. Louis, MO. Topics included sources of interference, AI, and statistical metrics for wireless link quality assessment, time-critical wireless networks, and scheduling for Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC). Wireless communications is a key enabling technology for facilitating massive industrial communications and mobility by providing a high degree of flexibility and lower installation costs. Industrial wireless technologies include IEEE 802.15.4, IEEE 802.11, 3GPP 4G/5G, and many others. However, there are concerns about reliability and latency in industrial wireless networks, and deployments of wireless networks in industrial environments have experienced varying degrees of success. The industrial wireless environments can be harsh and demanding and quite different from home and office environments. Moreover, mission-critical industrial applications are exceptionally challenging, where loss and retransmissions cannot be tolerated. To make wireless a reality in factory and industrial environments and to benefit society as a whole, performance expectations must be managed, quantified, and measured, and solutions must address these expectations. This special conference session was organized to encourage the adoption of wireless technology where appropriate by designing, deploying, and evaluating such systems for industrial and other mission-critical applications.