Using signal processing to improve communications on the manufacturing shop floor

Meeting the challenge of developing reliable data and voice communications for the multinode manufacturing shop floor environment requires extension of signal processing technology. The author examines a portion of this problem, the propagation characteristics of RF shop floor communications, to highlight the technical challenges in developing a reliable receiver for short latency data signals in a medium to large manufacturing facility. These propagation characteristics are used to infer the requirements for an equalized data demodulator suitable for the application, and then to show the need for study of alternative modulation and signal conditioning approaches.<>