An industrial Wireless Sensor Networks framework for production monitoring

This paper presents design and implementation of a spatially distributed measurement system using Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) for real-time condition and performance monitoring of industrial machines in a manufacturing system setting. Main focus in this study was given to applications in small-to-medium size metalworking industry, where most of the machinery are conventional and do not support modern digital data communication technologies common for factory networking. The general procedure and the details of implementation are presented through a prototype implementation performed in a metalworking industry. A multi-platform and multi-layer sensor platform has been utilized using ZigBee-based TelosB and SunSPOT motes for enhancing the wireless communication quality in a factory environment. A distributed decision making scheme was used in order to provide real-time reliable machine utilization information.