In this paper, a novel Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol for industrial\nWireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) is proposed and studied. The main\nchallenge in industry automation systems is the ultra-low network latency\nwith a target upper bound in the order of 1 ms while maintaining high network\nreliability and availability. The novelty of the proposed wireless MAC\nprotocol resides in its similar latency performance as its counterpart in wired\nindustrial LAN. First, the functional design of the MAC protocol is introduced.\nThen its performance results gained from hardware implementation\n(SystemC and VHDL) on an FPGA platform are presented. Finally, a\nreal-time communication module which achieves the ultra-low latency required\nin industrial automation is described.
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