Wireless Control Foundation

Wireless Control Foundation: Continuous and Discrete Control for the Process Industry offers an overview of wireless communication concepts and terminology essential for implementing wireless control in the process industry. The control system interfaces and wireless field devices discussed in this book are based on industrial wireless standards and are suitable for monitoring and control applications. Initially, wireless transmitters were used only for process monitoring, not control. However, over the years, wireless measurements have gained high user confidence, and new control techniques have been developed to address the unique characteristics of wireless operation. Due to the widespread acceptance of wireless transmitters, many manufacturers are now developing and introducing wireless final control elements, such as on/off and throttling valves.

This book details technical innovations that utilize wireless measurements and final control elements for control purposes. It explains how control can be structured to manage the slow, non-periodic measurement update rates from wireless transmitters and how to compensate for communication delays to the final control elements. These innovative control techniques enable the use of wireless measurements and valves in closed-loop control systems, allowing for seamless integration. It also discusses how wireless measurements can be integrated with model predictive control (MPC). Multiple application examples illustrate the requirements for implementing wireless control. Workshops included in this book explore key concepts related to wireless control, with solutions available on the accompanying website.

Designed for process or control engineers, this book assumes familiarity with traditional control methods but limited experience in designing, installing, testing or commissioning control systems that use wireless transmitters and valves. It offers comprehensive coverage of wireless control for both continuous and discrete applications within the process industry, and it provides information on commercially available analog and discrete wireless transmitters, as well as on/off valves.

Some readers may work with existing distributed control systems (DCSs) that lack native support for wireless field devices, guidance is given on integrating wireless networks into control systems using supported serial and Ethernet interfaces. It also explains how to create the necessary proportional-integral-derivative (PID) modifications for wireless control using DCS-supported tools, and one chapter describes how to easily develop a dynamic simulation of the process and wireless field devices within a DCS for checkout and operator training on wireless control.