Wireless LAN 1/27

Network Topologies

Geert Bracke
Acc. Manager BeLux
Industrial Wireless LAN 2/27

Markets

Automation Production, Service

Energy Data Transfer, Management

Transportation Data Transfer, Traffic Monitoring

BAT54-Rail - Industrial Wireless LAN 3/27

Applications

Interconnection to Mobile Devices

Enlighting of Halls and Production Environments

Adding WLAN as Redundant Connection to Cable Installations

Replacement of Cabling
Industrial Wireless LAN 4/27

Focussed on Security

There are three Types of Security :

> Safety of Operation using Redundancy

> Transmission Stability by optimzed WLAN Quality

> Network Security by Authentication, Encryption and Firewall

Todays possibilities with WLAN in industrial environments 5/27

Possible topologies of networks

Advantages of the available possibilities

Disadvantages

Goals for improvement of WLAN availability

Threats to solve

possible solutions
WLAN Infrastructures 6/27

Extension of existing LAN

Client Clients can be: Notebooks, PCs or

BAT54-Rail in Client Mode

Frequency ranges: 5GHz or 2,4 GHz

Access-Point

Clients move in between Access-

Points

Local Area Network

LAN-LAN coupling via WLAN 7/27
BAT54-Rail at Client
or Client Bridge
Mode

SNR signalization by LED

for Clients and Point-to-
Point-Connections

LAN 2
LAN 1
Redundant Wireless LAN 8/27

Enhanced Stability for WLAN

Two Radio Interfaces in access point and client

Redundant connection using Rapid Spanning Tree

Transparent to Industrial Ethernet Protocols (Layer 4)

Two Frequency Ranges simultaneously

2,4GHz

5GHz

Network
WLAN Distribution 9/27

5 GHz
Backbone

2,4 GHz
with Client
interconnection
Wireless Distribution 10/27

Relay functionality to
interconnect
between radio cells

Illumination of areas
(campus, hot spots)
Possible WLAN Topologies 11/27

AP 1 AP 2 AP 3 AP 4

LAN connection
Max. 6x P2P/Interface

AP1 AP n
AC1/AP2 AC2/AP3

Local Network
Point-to-Point-Connection
Map of 12/27
Hall 9
customer site

Hall 6

Laboratory
WLAN Topology at Customer 13/27

Laboratory Hall 9

Lab 1 Hall 9-1 Hall 9-2

4th floor

Hall 6

Hall 6-1 2nd floor

Hall 9-3 Hall 9-5

Ground
Local Network floor
Hall 9-4
Point-to-Point-Connection
Threats for industrial WLAN networks 14/27

There are still some threats for WLAN in industrial environment:

- the connections are not stable enough

- rough environmental conditions

- Industrial Ethernet Protocols are very sensitive to packet latency and

interruptions (Profinet, Ethernet/IP)

- Safety applications need very high availability (failover < 99,999%)

- Usability should be as easy as plugging cables

Industrial network layer 15/27

Enterprise Resource
Planning

Control level
WLAN

HMI / IPC PLC Bluetooth/Zigbee/Wise

Field level
/UWB/Varan etc.

TRANSMITTER DRIVES & TRANSMITTER

SENSOR VALVE PENDENT
MOTORS BUTTONS
Utilizing Rapid Spanning tree for fixed network redundancy 16/27
Utilizing Rapid Spanning tree for fixed network redundancy 17/27

Advantages:
- Available today
- standardized protocol (802.1w)
- also used for ethernet networks

Missing:
- No automatic configuration of the topology
- fixed installation needed
- still high handover times
Goals for improvement of industrial WLAN networks 18/27

Goals:
- rise the availability

- no more single points of failure

- easy-to-setup and to use

- reduce packet latency and handover times

Achieve by:
- create redundancy (which is basically controversial to 802.11 MAC functionality)

using other topology: meshed networks

Meshed network topology 19/27

History:

- Mid 1990ies created by DARPA for military applications on battlefields

- Improved by R&D companies like SRT International
- Wikipedia offers today more than 50 possible routing protocols for meshing

Features:

- Better scalability: network power increases by each hop added to it

- Automatic configuration and scalability
- very fast or even no handover times
- increase of availability of WLAN network
- quick and easy setup
- reduction of cables needed
Meshed networks 20/27

Gateway to Sensor networks

WAN/LAN-Gateway

search for the best itinerary

self healing network
no cabling
Meshed networks 21/27

WAN/LAN-Gateway

fast handover
allways more than one connection avilable
Increase of availability
Meshed networks 22/27

WAN/LAN-Gateway

search for the best itinerary

Addition of bandwidth
Increase of availability
Meshed networks 23/27
Access Points need to
-Route
-Negotiate
-encrypt

Gateway to Sensor networks

WAN/LAN-Gateway

more CPU power needed

routing capabilities are not part of basic access points
at least two WLAN interfaces needed
Wireless management 24/27

The way to keep the overview - Management System

A meshed network is basically self-configuring

How to keep the overview?

Over the current topology

Over possible vulnerabilities

Over possible attacs

Management Systems today base on SNMP protocol (polling)

Mesh APs need to declare themselves LLDP

Meshed networks have higher demands to management than current WLAN!

Wireless security 25/27

Network Security is still a must!

A meshed network is very flexible

Authentication mechanisms are very static today

802.1x needs external servers

How to know which device may connect?

How about Rogue APs?

802.1x can be part of the AP already (BAT54-Rail Version 7.10)

Meshed networks have higher demands to security functionality WLAN!

The roadmap to Meshing 26/27

Hirschmann BAT54-Rail

The operating system offers many capabilities today

IP routing is already implemented

802.1x internal server and supplicant is available

Equipped with two WLAN interfaces

Equipped with powerful Intel CPU and sufficient memory

Its more than just a basic access point

Meshing will be available by software update. No new hardware needed.

Roadmap:

Find out which protocol is best (IEEE 802.11s is in discussion but maybe not
suitable for industrial applications): Q1/2008

Implement and test: Q3/2008

 27/27

Thank you for your attention!