COMPUTING PLATFORM FOR INTEGRATING WIRELESS HETEROGENEOUS NETWORKS INTO INDUSTRIAL INTERNET OF THINGS SYSTEMS

Abstract

Wireless data transmission interfaces have advantages that ensure their wide and almost inevitable application in a number of tasks of creating modern automation systems, cyber-physical systems, Industrial Internet of Things, and sensor networks. However, there is a certain methodological gap between radiophysicists who are engaged in the design of wireless networks, and IT specialists who need to implement them into various computing systems. The gap is caused by the insufficiently high quality of documentation, software stacks and tools, especially in terms of conceptual and microarchitectural descriptions. The situation is aggravated by the high complexity, closeness and poor compatibility of hardware and software components of different standards provided by vendors. This situation does not always allows to find and use optimal solutions that fully utilize the capabilities of existing network technologies, forcing us to limit ourselves only to standard configurations and application scenarios imposed by vendors. The article reasons the possibility and prospects of building a heterogeneous wireless communications platform that allows using several wireless communication technologies in one system at once and flexibly configuring their parameters. This will expand the range of solved applied tasks in the field of the Industrial Internet of Things. The principles of designing and implementing the proposed platform are considered using the original methodology of high-level design of custom computing systems based on cross-level design entities called kernels and microarchitectural patterns. The results of prototyping the main components of a wireless heterogeneous network platform are presented.