Applicability of different wireless networks adopted for time-critical control tasks in buildings: A comprehensive comparison study

The Industrial Internet of Things (Industrial IoT, or IIoT) and emerging wireless network technologies are driving the evolution in industrial fields, as well as smart buildings. However, there is still no common paradigm of applying IIoT and wireless network technologies for time-critical industrial tasks, especially for these tasks in building automation. The applicability and deployment of different networks for these tasks have also not been tested yet. This study, therefore, aims to assess the applicability of different commonly-used wireless networks adopted for building automation with the consideration of their deployments. An IIoT control architecture adaptable to different wireless networks is proposed, as a potential alternative for future IoT-enabled building automation systems. Two typical wireless networks, i.e., Wi-Fi network and 4^th generation with long-term evolution (4G LTE) cellular network with industrial configurations, are adopted for building controls. The network coverage and connection performance of these two networks are experimentally tested in a building scenario. Meanwhile, the performance of a typical building time-critical control task using these networks with different deployments is experimentally assessed. The results show that, to provide satisfactory performance for building time-critical control tasks in networked IoT environments, the Wi-Fi network needs to be elaborately deployed, while the 4G LTE cellular network with typical deployment can have satisfactory performance. The proposed IIoT control architecture can be a recommendable alternative for IoT-enabled building automation systems, and the assessed network applicability is significant for network deployment in future smart buildings.