On the role of feedback for industrial wireless networks using relaying and packet aggregation

To be accepted for use in industrial applications, wireless technologies must offer similar performance in terms of reliability and timeliness as provided by current wired solutions. Wireless channels, introducing time-varying packet error rates, impose a significant challenge to fulfill these requirements. One way to improve reliability in industrial wireless networks is to use relaying, whereas packet aggregation is a method that can reduce delay. Hence, in this paper, we propose to use a combination of relaying and packet aggregation. Based on the type of feedback provided by the controller, the relay node can choose the most suitable way to use its allocated time slots such that more packets can reach the controller before their deadlines. The results show that allowing this kind of flexibility at the relay node results in performance improvements. The more flexibility, the greater the gain, and thus further improvements can be made by adjusting the schedule to take different types of feedback into account.