Distributed and mobile systems based on wireless networks: definition of a generic control architecture

The tendency toward the use of distributed systems is due to these systems have demonstrated to be a good option for the industrial control systems implementation, because of their flexibility and power, which can be increased with the application of artificial intelligence techniques. In this line, our research group has developed several distributed systems applied to chemical analysis and industrial automation. For these implementations the CAN network was used. Nowadays there is a market for technical tasks like distributed control, monitoring or data acquisition where there is a need for wireless connectivity. Thus, in this paper we want to discuss possibilities and necessary developments to set up wireless communication for industrial applications. Also, an abstract definition of a new layered architecture for the implementation of intelligent and distributed systems interconnected by means of wireless networks is proposed. Several techniques of discrete control may be used, from Petri nets to an expert system based on rule nets, while continuous control loops may be implemented by means of from traditional PID devices to distributed neural network approaches. Finally, for the communication layer implementation, a wireless network such as Bluetooth or ZigBee could be used.