Low-Cost Wireless Monitoring and Control: A Case Study for Industrial Implementation

Abstract

In this study, a low-cost wireless industrial system is designed and implemented in a local pharmaceutical factory for monitoring and control. ESP8266 modules were utilized to establish wireless communication among various input and output devices in the factory. The master-slave (i.e., server-client) technology using ESP8266 modules was adopted for the communication topology where all clients can be connected to various types of sensors (e.g., to measure variables such as temperature, humidity, and pressure) and outputs (e.g., relays, lights, and output devices) for control purposes. It is in fact a simplified SCADA system implemented using low-cost WiFi microchips for monitoring and control. In addition, an HTML webpage was designed as a GUI for monitoring the sensors' measurements and manually controlling some output devices that are distributed normally in factories. Moreover, a data logger was also designed and implemented using Google Sheets for mainly saving the data (i.e., measurement of real-time parameter variations) and for generating informative reports for users and management.