NIST-Led Industrial Wireless Standard IEEE 3388 Passes Important Review Steps

For several years, NIST’s Industrial Wireless Systems Project Leader Rick Candell and his team have led the working group developing the draft IEEE 3388 Standard for the Performance Assessment of Industrial Wireless Systems. This draft standard has reached a major milestone by passing its IEEE Standards Association RevCom (or Standards Review Committee) review and receiving its subsequent IEEE Standards Association Standards Board approval. This standard establishes a functional model for radio frequency (RF) industrial wireless performance degradation factors (referred to as “aggressors”), and it provides a reference test architecture for performance evaluation processes and methods for industrial wireless networks used in mission-critical applications, such as manufacturing, power generation, precision time-sensitive sensing, and closed-loop control where wireless is a primary communications mode. Standardized testing prior to deployment will help make wireless systems more reliable for mission-critical applications where appropriate. The next steps include taking a deep dive through the specification of interference and propagation aggressors as well as establishing profiles for specific industry verticals. This milestone demonstrates the team’s commitment to advancing industry standards and fostering innovation in these critical areas.