Industrial functional safety assessment for WSN using QoS metrics

Sivasubramanian Srinivasan; T K Ramesh; Roberto Paccapeli; Luca Fanucci

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e11255

Industrial functional safety assessment for WSN using QoS metrics

Heliyon. 2022 Nov 7;8(11):e11255. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e11255. eCollection 2022 Nov.

Authors

Sivasubramanian Srinivasan¹, T K Ramesh¹, Roberto Paccapeli², Luca Fanucci³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Amrita School of Engineering, Bengaluru, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, India.
² Red Hat, Italy.
³ Department of Information Engineering, University of Pisa, Via G Caruso, 16-56122, Pisa, Italy.

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks are increasingly getting deployed for the safety use cases in industrial applications. While several research papers discuss about the Quality & Reliability improvement techniques in WSN systems to achieve minimal delay, higher node life, optimal routing etc., very limited work is witnessed on assessment of safety integrity levels of WSN systems. In this paper we tried to bridge this gap by bringing out a QoS metric-based safety integrity assessment for the end-to-end industrial Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) system. To identify relevant QoS metrics for monitoring the safety integrity levels, we also bring out a 4-step mapping methodology to link the QoS metrics and communication defenses/safety mechanisms. This mapping approach is expected to serve the network safety design engineers. Finally, a simulation case example is discussed to illustrate safety integrity assessment and we conclude by bringing out future research opportunities to improve safety integrity levels of industrial WSN systems.

Keywords: Industrial functional safety; Message defenses; Message threats; QoS guarantees; QoS metrics; Safety integrity level; Wireless sensor networks.