Wireless channel characterization and modeling in oil and gas refinery plants

Wireless network technology is becoming a remarkable research topic in the field of industrial monitoring and process control. The widespread adoption of the wireless systems is mandatorily paired with the development of tools for prediction of the wireless link quality to mimic network planning procedures similar to conventional wired systems. In industrial sites the radio signals are prone to blockage due to highly dense metallic structures. The layout of scattering objects from the infrastructure influences the link quality, and thus the strength of the signal power. In this paper it is developed a novel channel model specifically tailored to predict the quality of the radio signal in environments affected by highly dense metallic building blockage. The propagation model is based on the diffraction theory and it makes use of the 3D model of the plant to classify the links based on the number and the density of the obstructions surrounding each link. The proposed channel modeling approach is validated by experimental measurements in two oil refinery sites using industry standard ISA SP100.11a compliant commercial devices operating at 2.4GHz.