Bluetooth Mesh Networking: An Enabler of Smart Factory Connectivity and Management

Smart factory is an environment where machinery and equipment are able to work together to improve processes through automation and self-optimisation. Connectivity in smart factory is the key enabler to optimise operations through collection of data to accelerate automation in a factory setting. This paper proposes the use of Bluetooth wireless mesh networking to realise the vision of smart factory, providing efficient connectivity to collect data from the shop-floor in real-time. Downstream communication to the sensor devices can also be performed, thus creating a digital twin of the shop-floor and its process. A web-based visualisation dashboard is implemented to monitor the status of sensors and machinery in real-time. The developed system is also integrated with an indoor localisation mechanism to provision new sensors into the mesh network. An augmented reality dashboard enables a user who is physically patrolling the smart factory to view sensor status in real-time.