Smart Factory Automation

Industrial manufacturing is fundamentally changing, where more agile factory floors nurture competitive edge and operational excellence. In a dynamic world of motion with independent machines and systems, wired communication limits mobility and scalability. To increase efficiency and flexibility, leading manufacturers embrace digitalization, driving the demand for robotics, smart sensors, and advanced actuators for automation.

Wireless factory automation

Wireless communication comes to unlock advanced adaptive manufacturing and reliable control over dynamic machinery, by retrofitting existing infrastructure across a variety of industries, from packaging, automotive to logistics. As a result, various applications from intelligent tooling, robots to transport track systems reap the benefits of mass customization, higher throughput, and better overall equipment efficiency (OEE).

IO-Link Wireless for remote control and real-time monitoring

Embedding wireless connectivity can be challenging, as manufacturing lines employ excessive electrical noise levels, coming from fast-moving, rotating machinery operating at high speeds. Conventional wireless technologies fall short in delivering reliable, uninterrupted connectivity.

Optimized for industrial automation, the IO-Link Wireless (IOLW) protocol provides highly robust, 5 msec latency wireless communication with deterministic data transport and compatibility to the wired factory automation protocols.

Silicon Labs offering

Wireless industrial automation experts rely on the Silicon Labs offering for high-performance, reliable, and low latency communication. The EFR32MG24 SoC IO-Link is the single SoC on the market to meet the requirements and speeds design of IO-Link Wireless. With the highest level of industry security certification at the SoC level, PSA Level 3 -Certified Secure Vault™, Silicon Labs mitigates any security gap.

Factory automation design considerations

Developing IOLW compatible wireless solutions in the high-interference industrial sites implies a series of key design considerations.

Industrial grade reliability, wireless coexistence, and latency

For cable-grade, reliable connectivity in the 2.4 GHz frequency band, IOLW demands 5 msec latency and combines frequency- and time-division multiple access schemes (F/TDMA), using frequency hopping to minimize the effects of channel-selective fading, shadowing, and interference.

Power consumption

When powering battery powered devices and communication modules, such as load cells, force sensors for machine tooling or push buttons, battery life becomes critical. The ultra-low power Silicon Labs wireless chip sets creates solutions with long battery lifetime span, at no trade-off between capacity and throughput.