Enabling wireless technologies for industry 4.0: State of the art

The current revolution of the manufacturing sector, usually referred to as Industry 4.0, is deeply modifying the traditional production paradigms. The availability of cost-effective sensing and/or computing elements as well as ad-hoc communications protocols are, in fact, making it possible to provide the whole supply chain with a global awareness about the production process. Selecting the most adequate protocol results fundamental to assure the best integration of the industrial machines with the current de-facto information framework, i.e. Internet of Things. Stemming from their past experiences on wireless communication and distributed measurement systems, the authors will provide hereinafter a proper roadmap between the different and most common communication protocols according both to the wireless operating range and industrial requirements.