Experiences from a wireless sensor network deployment in a petroleum environment

In this paper, we describe our experiences in the design, implementation and deployment of a wireless sensor network in a petroleum facility. A heterogeneous architecture is devised using Commercial Off-the-Shelf equipment and hardware interface is designed to setup the proposed prototype in a petroleum facility. Various performance parameters such as latency and data rate are investigated. The results show that sensor networks for an industrial environment have firm requirements of latency, throughput and channel access. In addition, an analysis of environmental noise present in the plant is also presented.