Method for Detecting Transmission Link Failure in Industrial Wireless Networks

Industrial Wireless Networks have been increasingly employed in industry. In manyindustrial environments device failures can occur. The detection of failures is essential for theproper network operation. This work aims to accomplish link failure detection in an IndustrialWireless Network. A link failure can occur if the radio Power Amplifier presents problems. Ifthe power amplifier does not work properly, asymmetry may occur in communications sincethe Power Amplifier is responsible only for the transmission. It is proposed an algorithm whichperiodically analyses the Receive Signal Level of transmissions and infer whether happening aPower Amplifier fault in some device. The proposed method contributes to the correct diagnosisof network problems since link asymmetry can induce the Network Manager and also the userto understand that healthy devices are not working correctly.