Industrial wireless sensor standards; a user perspective

Future industrial use of wireless instrumentation will undoubtedly increase dramatically in the coming years. Deployment of such instrumentation in an industrial setting - with its security and robustness criteria that are much more stringent than residential performance criteria - hinges on user acceptance of verified performance as well as meeting cost requirements. Today, circa 2011, these industrial users are faced with many choices when specifying a wireless sensor network, including radio performance, battery life, interoperability concerns, and standards compliance. With industrial users standing on the precipice to order and deploy (literally) millions of wireless instruments, it is imperative that accurate information for applying the technology to real-world applications be available to the end-user.