PSSS based wireless communication for latency critical ultra-reliable communication in factory automation

• Applicants: Professor Dr.-Ing. Rüdiger Kays; Professor Dr.-Ing. Rolf Kraemer
• Subject Area: Electronic Semiconductors, Components and Circuits, Integrated Systems, Sensor Technology, Theoretical Electrical Engineering
• Term: from 2019 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 432106374

Communication between sensors, actuators and control systems in production automation requires very high reliability (BER≤ 10-9) with very short cycle times (< 0.1 ms). Moderate data rates of 100Mb/s are usually sufficient. Wireless networking is desirable to provide flexibility, mobility and ease of installation. At present, there are no suitable solutions that can achieve the required parameters. In the project applied for, the concept of Parallel-Sequence Spread Spectrum (PSSS), which has so far received little attention, shall be taken up in order to investigate whether a solution is possible on this basis. The industrial radio channel is characterized by strong reflections, which lead to deep fades in the channel transfer function. These can be compensated by a high bandwidth PSSS system (50-100MHz) in combination with a suitable choice of system parameters. The research questions related to modulation, error protection, synchronization and channel equalization will be investigated in this project as well as specific properties of PSSS with respect to the imperfect orthogonality of the codes and the influence of nonlinearities of the transmission channel. The aim is to develop a solution that can provide the required performance even under the critical propagation conditions mentioned above. Basic knowledge about the PSSS method is gained, which can also be applied to other applications of radio communication. A comparison with OFDMA approaches will be performed.The research tasks will be carried out in a clearly defined division of labour between the working groups of the applicants, whereby the jointly developed results from former joint projects, in particular the BMBF project ParSec, offer a good starting position, since here already first experiences with a PSSS system of smaller bandwidth for significantly lower requirements concerning cycle time and data rate are available.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants