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Reliability and Availability Evaluation of Wireless Sensor Networks for Industrial Applications

Authors :
Francisco Vasques
Ivanovitch Silva
Paulo Portugal
Luiz Affonso Guedes
Source :
Sensors, Vol 12, Iss 1, Pp 806-838 (2012)
Publication Year :
2012
Publisher :
MDPI AG, 2012.

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) currently represent the best candidate to be adopted as the communication solution for the last mile connection in process control and monitoring applications in industrial environments. Most of these applications have stringent dependability (reliability and availability) requirements, as a system failure may result in economic losses, put people in danger or lead to environmental damages. Among the different type of faults that can lead to a system failure, permanent faults on network devices have a major impact. They can hamper communications over long periods of time and consequently disturb, or even disable, control algorithms. The lack of a structured approach enabling the evaluation of permanent faults, prevents system designers to optimize decisions that minimize these occurrences. In this work we propose a methodology based on an automatic generation of a fault tree to evaluate the reliability and availability of Wireless Sensor Networks, when permanent faults occur on network devices. The proposal supports any topology, different levels of redundancy, network reconfigurations, criticality of devices and arbitrary failure conditions. The proposed methodology is particularly suitable for the design and validation of Wireless Sensor Networks when trying to optimize its reliability and availability requirements.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
14248220
Volume :
12
Issue :
1
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
Sensors
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.2511f692e5940aab8e71a90a5b53dca
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3390/s120100806