Analyzing WirelessHART High-level Data Link Control frame payload

WirelessHART has become an interesting technology for enabling wireless monitoring and control applications in industrial process plants. However, only few tools are available for studying and investigating WirelessHART network and messages such as Wi-HTest. This paper introduces an approach to analyze and study WirelessHART High-level Data Link Control frame payload. It utilizes Eltima´s Serial Port Monitor and MATLAB® software to provide a dedicated tool for reading, analyzing and generating the frame payload to interface with a WirelessHART development module like XDM2510H. The paper also points out and proves the existence of several security threats with WirelessHART protocol such as traffic analysis, eavesdropping and tampering.