The Effects of Relay Behavior and Position in Wireless Industrial Networks

In wireless industrial networks, providing reliable and timely communication is crucial. Previous research has shown that relaying can be used to achieve this goal. However, we have found that different types of wireless channels encountered in industrial environments affect the benefits as well as the best behavior and position of relay nodes. We consider two types of behavior: the relay node always retransmits or it only retransmits if it has obtained a correct copy of the packet. We evaluate different positions of the relay node by conducting simulations for two types of fading channels: with and without line of sight. The results clearly show that the benefits, the best behavior and position of a relay node depends on the wireless channel, whether or not the bit errors appear randomly or in bursts and also on the distance between the source and the final destination. © 2012 IEEE.©2012 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.