The implementation of an ARM-based low-power wireless process control system

Until recent years, industrial control systems relied on wires to transfer the process values and control signals through an industrial plant. The use of wireless is limited to monitoring non-critical process values and using it for process control was uncommon for several reasons: complexity of usage, reliability, power consumption and a general doubt on its advantages. Wireless technology has made great progress in terms of usage, low-power capabilities and availability. Furthermore, the microcontrollers which implement the wireless stacks and the core of any wireless network have seen lots of improvements mainly regarding performance and power usage. This paper presents the possible solution to replace standard wire-based control systems with using a low-power ARM Cortex microcontroller and a low-power IEEE 802.15.4 transceiver bundle acting as a wireless node which can do both control calculations and data acquisition used in a traditional control system.