Adopting WirelessHART for In-vehicle-Networking

It is estimated that the breakthrough in the broad deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) could come from smart cars. Indeed, we have seen multi-facet advances around cars: new material, in vehicle infotainment, driverless cars, smart transportation, electrical vehicles, etc. However, in-vehicle-networking has been mainly by wire, the wiring for a car is largely pre-built during the design phase. With more and more things networked within a car, wiring has taken up 1-2 percent of the total weight. This translates into burning up to 0.1 kilogram fuel over 100 kilometers. On the other hand, the advances in wireless technology, especially the broad acceptance of WirelssHART in the industrial settings, has proved its capability in harsh environments. This paper studies what could happen if we use WirelessHART mesh network for in-vehicle communication. While new wireless network protocols are needed to perform the task of CAN, the dominant in-vehicle fieldbus, WirelessHART could take on the work performed by LIN, the fieldbus for peripheral devices. A detailed study is provided to compare these buses. Road tests were performed, in which a WirelessHART network keeps running for the whole 20 minute period.