Zugl.: München, Techn. University, Diss., 2009.

The study presented in this thesis is focused on the investigation of wireless application in industrial environment. The objective of this work is to provide an insight on the development of the wireless machine to machine (M2M) application, and a systematic approach for improving the application reliability on radio link level by end users. As a specific case, ABB Robotics’ Remote Service concept is examined to check whether the selection of cellular technology as its wireless access method and the choice of standard radio link components are able to satisfy the application requirement under different circumstances. Several modifications of the radio link components and topologies, e.g. repeater system, combiner, etc, are proposed for the enhancement of radio link reliability. Theoretical evaluations of these options are based on detailed radio link calculation and MATLAB simulation using propagation model dedicated for industrial environment. Furthermore, on site test is carried out to validate the theoretical evaluations. The M2M market investigation is also included in the task, in order to select the most cost-effective components from different suppliers. While walking through the radio link optimization process of the specific case, necessary information and knowledge common to all wireless M2M application are explained. In the end, in addition to a guide line for installation and other supporting documents regarding to the Remote Service, some rules of thumb available for the radio link optimization in all kinds of industrial environments are generalized and presented in the form of a flowchart, which can be beneficial for those support engineers of the application provider, who are not necessarily experts in wireless technology.

This report describes a thesis work carried out at ABB Robotics in Västerås. The objective of this thesis is to find technologies  and equipments  for wireless data transfer  suitable for the present and future needs of ABB Robotics Remote Service for large installations in industrial environments. ABB Robotics has a Remote Service solution to securely gather information from robots, manage alarms and potentially execute remote commands by ABB Robotics. This solution consists of an intelligent Service  Box plugged to the robot. This  Service Box is also connected through GPRS or directly through Internet to create a secure VPN connection to a central Remote Service  server. The Remote Service Box is well  suited  for small customers with  1-10 robots with plug  and play installation, but show limitations at a larger scale of deployment  due to equipment costs,  network and installation complexity. A new Service Box is planned that will accommodate future added functionality to Remote Service. This Service Box will require new network solutions as the added functionality  is depending on a higher bandwidth than the GPRS networks can deliver. I have surveyed most existing  wireless  networking technologies  and  analyzed  them  withrespect  to function, cost and availability which provide a knowledge base that makes it possible to find  suitable  solutions. When the most suitable technologies are identified a survey was performed to find equipments that meet the requirements at the lowest cost. A new hierarchical network topology is proposed  that will lead to cost savings by replacing multiple WAN connections in the present solution with  a network switch and  single WAN connection to Internet. As manufacturers of network equipments for industrial environments are relatively few, alternative solutions were also investigated in order to find the most cost effective solutions. The  proposed  network topology together with the data from the surveys lead to recommendations on using Wi-Fi  in the wireless LAN and  a  3G mobile  network for the WAN connection to Internet, as well as recommendations on alternative network equipments that  potentially  can  lead to substantial savings when the new network solutions are implemented.