MS-Aloha: Preliminary analysis of its suitability for wireless automation

This paper deals with the adoption of wireless communications in industrial automation. Most diffuse wireless systems require the deployment of a fixed infrastructure, with sufficient nodes acting as coordinators; this approach is typically applied also in automation. Conversely, a decentralized wireless solution is here proposed: it is based on a synchronous and connection-oriented protocol studied for vehicular communications. The protocol, called MS-Aloha, guarantees a multi-hop coordination with dynamic resource reservation, spatial slot re-use and hidden terminals prevention. The proposed solution has been modeled and simulated in order to quantitatively demonstrate how much its determinism and multi-hop coordination can be beneficial to the automation, in comparison to CSMA/CA. The simulated scenarios address the evaluation of the latency, delay variation, and delivery rate in critical conditions involving hidden terminals and close to congestion.