Optimising Wireless Network Control System Traffic – Using Queuing Theory

The network delay has a huge impact to the quality of a networked control system. This paper investigates modelling the network delay incurred by control system packets traversing a Mobile Ad Hoc Network from a plant to a controller using the queuing theory. Control systems can become unstable if information is lost or delayed so in this paper we compare voice traffic modelling with control packet data characteristics and show that with correct scheduling then delay can be minimised and kept stable until the network becomes congested