On the improvement of WirelessHART Access Points by means of Software Defined Radio

WirelessHART (WH) is a recently standardized wireless fieldbus. The connection between WH and the host plant network is obtained with Access Points and Gateways. These devices have complex (and costly) architecture, but do not offer flexibility with respect to new update of the specification, and have limited diagnostic capabilities. In this paper, the architecture of a smart WH Access Point, which takes advantage of the Software Defined Radio paradigm, is presented. Thanks to its extreme flexibility and adaptability, it can provide a good investment protection. Moreover, it has additional diagnostic features, like interfering protocol identification and decoding, that keep the network reliable and available. As proof of concept, a prototype of the proposed WH Access Point has been developed using GNU Radio, obtaining the first simulation results.