Wireless sensor network (WSN) technologies and associated cloud technologies are accelerating adoption for the industrial Internet of Things, according to ON World.

Wireless sensor network (WSN) technologies and associated cloud technologies are accelerating adoption for the industrial Internet of Things, according to global IoT research firm ON World.

"WSN systems provide the building blocks for industrial IoT: multi-year battery-powered wireless nodes and seamless integration with the hundreds of IoT cloud platforms," says Mareca Hatler, ON Worlds research director.
ON Worlds set of four reports covers the major industrial IoT markets for wireless sensing, tracking and control based on recent phone interviews and surveys with 250+ individuals across the whole value chain. It includes in-depth market analysis, research data, technology evaluation and market size forecasts that will be customized for each customer.
Emerging trends covered in this report set include the following:
Wireless Mesh Sensor Networking
ON Worlds 2017 survey on WSN and IoT with 180+ industrial automation professionals, completed in collaboration with the International Society of Automation (ISA), found steady growth for wireless mesh standards such as ISA100, WirelessHART and Bluetooth Low Energy as well as growing adoption of Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) networking solutions including Sigfox, LoRa, LTE-M and NB-IoT. Deployment sizes are also growing with 1 in 3 with over 1,000 WSN nodes installed over all locations and 12% have deployed single site deployments with 1,000 or more.
WirelessHART is the most widely used wireless mesh protocol but ISA100.11a adoption increased 4X faster compared with ON Worlds previous survey in 2014. The survey also found that while satisfaction with WSN solutions has increased overall, improvements are needed for battery life, costs, system integration and network range.
Low Power Wide Area Networks
LPWA technologies are disrupting industrial IoT markets with cloud connected, 10-year battery-powered wireless sensors and asset trackers that can communicate up to 20 miles. By pushing the network complexity to the cloud, LPWA technologies reduce network management complexity and by providing have captured thousands of developers and dozens of network operators worldwide. Two in 5 of the survey respondents are researching or developing LPWA solutions. Three-quarters of those developing LPWAN solutions are targeting new applications that cannot be met with other technologies.
Connecting Stranded Assets
With potential infrastructure savings as high as 80%, wireless has become the default option for remote monitoring for oil and gas applications such as wellhead automation, equipment maintenance, tank monitoring as well as safety, health and environmental monitoring.
The oil downturn has given wireless adoption a boost due to its lower total costs and advantages for remote monitoring in harsh environments. This has benefited non-traditional wireless applications such as asset monitoring, gas detection and steam trap monitoring. It has also accelerated adoption for standards based systems using WirelessHART and ISA100 Wireless and resulted in growing demand for LPWA technologies such as LoRa, Sigfox, RPMA, LTE-M and NB-IoT.
While much of the initial focus has been on wellsite automation, opportunities are growing for connecting mobile oil and gas assets such as LPG cylinders as well as lower value assets for upstream and downstream applications.
In 2025, connected wireless sensing, tracking and control devices for manufacturing, oil and gas, electric power, water/wastewater, logistics, agriculture, construction and others will reach 480 million up from 35 million this year. LPWA technologies such as LoRa, Sigfox, LTE-M and NB-IoT will make up most of this growth and will make up 1 in 4 of the connections by this time.
For more information about ON Worlds "Industrial WSN Set + Customization," go to:
https://www.onworld.com/iwsnset
About ON World:
ON World (http://www.onworld.com) provides global business intelligence on Internet of Things markets.