Wireless solutions for automation requirements

Wireless technologies are being more and more used in automation, not only because the installation costs are much lower, but also the true self-reconfiguration of a system without any rewiring becomes possible as ever did before. Together with other technologies like service oriented architectures and the use of agent technology, wireless at the physical level play an important role towards flexible and self-reconfiguring systems. To try to have a clearer view about how wireless technologies are suitable or not for automation purposes, we first enumerate the communication requirements of several typical applications. We group the applications into classes and then we present what subsets of wireless technologies do cope with the specific requirements of each class of automation problems. Moreover we present self-powering issues and new opportunities for wireless networks, like location aware systems.