Towards a Dual-mode Adaptive MAC Protocol (DMA-MAC) for Feedback-based Networked Control Systems

Automated control systems play an important part in many industrial domains and the medium used for communication between devices in these systems is in transition from wired to wireless for cost reasons. Control systems have strict requirements on delay, throughput, and reliability, that vary with time during operation. Addressing these requirements requires predictable and robust protocols to be employed, and they must be adaptive to the varying states of the controlled process. In this article, we propose a dual-mode adaptive medium access control protocol that caters for two main operation modes in control systems: the steady mode operation, and the transient mode operation. We present initial performance analysis results focusing on energy consumption, including a comparison with a related single-mode industrial monitoring and control protocol.