Wireless HART TDMA Protocol Performance Evaluation Using Response Surface Methodology

Wireless HART is a state-of-the-art solution for a time-division multiple-access (TDMA) based wireless private area network. It combines slow frequency-hopping and a TDMA scheme that utilizes a centralized a-priori slot allocation mechanism. In this paper we conduct a performance evaluation of the Wireless HART TDMA protocol and provide insights into the major factors impacting energy consumption. These insights provide valuable guidance on where to start with any effort geared towards saving energy. The main contributions of this paper are two folds: (i) We conduct a sensitivity analysis of the Wireless HART TDMA energy consumption parameters using the response surface methodology. Based on these results we determine the most influential parameters for the total energy consumption. (ii) We evaluate and discuss the impact of time synchronization and types of link scheduling algorithms on the performance of Wireless HART TDMA protocol.