WirelessHART: Wireless System for Process Automation

Abstract

WirelessHART is a wireless communication protocol for process automation applications. WirelessHART was first introduce in September 2007 by the HART Communication Foundation, and the main aim was to add wireless capabilities to the already existing HART technology. WirelessHART has five main components namely Gateway, Field device, Network manager, adapter, Security Manager, and Router. The WirelessHART protocol was built based on the Open System Interconnection (OSI) of seven layers, but the WirelessHART has five layers; Physical, Data-Link, Network, Transport, and Application Layer. It employs many processes to ensure data; Confidentiality, Authenticity, Integrity, Availability, and Data freshness. Key Management is very critical in securing the WirelessHART network. The Security manager is responsible for the key management in the network. The Network Manager is responsible for assigning and allocating the keys in the network. The WirelessHART is not different from attack on any other wireless technologies. Attacks like Interference, Jamming, Tampering, Sybil, Collusion, Spoofing, Exhaustion, Wormhole, De-synchronization, Selective Forwarding, Traffic analysis, Misdirection, Hello flooding and Sinkhole. WirelessHART uses the Advance Encryption Standard (AES) to secure the network against attackers. The AES is made up of three parts, Cipher, Inverse cipher and key expansion.