White Paper: Introduction To Wireless Networking

We are all familiar with highly connected wireless networks such as mobile phone networks, but concerns about reliability, performance, and security have kept this core networking technology from making its way to the shop floor. Instead, the current generation of wireless products used in automation applications typically relies on simple transmitter/receiver pairs, offering no advanced networking. To make the most of wireless products, automation and process engineers and managers need to understand how these products work with each other, or network. This article outlines the very basics of wireless networking.