With all the information available for wired and wireless instruments, how do you choose which one to use? It’s a difficult decision because both methods of communication pose tradeoffs. To find the most suitable option for a particular application, you should consider a variety of factors; these include: security, purpose, economics, location and distance.
To help you make an informed decision, it can be helpful to use a decision tree to simplify the selection process and ensure you don’t overlook key considerations.
Security
When starting down the decision tree, the first factor you face is device security. To truly prevent intrusion regardless of whether the instrument is wired or wireless, designers must look at the system level as opposed to each individual device. In many cases, the system includes both wired and wireless instruments, which each have vulnerabilities needing protection.
Most wireless devices now have built-in security; however, with a wireless system, someone with an antenna could penetrate the signals and intercept data or disrupt the network by overloading it with large amounts of dubious messages intended to cause other communication devices to compete for bandwidth. On the other hand, connecting a wired system to the outside world, as is now common, opens the network to a whole host of potential entry points.
Read the full article on ChemicalProcessing.com.
