Mesh for Embedded Control

Mesh Networks Are Rewiring Embedded Systems

- By Curtis Franklin, Editor-in-Chief

New standards in mesh networking are rapidly changing the level of connectivity that engineers can count on when designing embedded systems. When used in concert with Bluetooth Low-Energy, 5G, and WiFi, mesh networking can make embedded networks smarter, faster, and more affordable than ever before.

A quiet revolution is taking place on and around control systems. Invisible to most operators, mesh networking has profound consequences for how machines are monitored, controlled and orchestrated. Once the province of academic papers and niche sensor networks, mesh architectures are now an indispensable tool in embedded control, powering everything from smart lighting systems in office buildings to distributed vibration monitoring across wind turbines.

For decades, the dominant approach to connecting embedded devices has been hierarchical: sensors and actuators communicate with a gateway or controller, which in turn communicates with a supervisory system. That model is simple and intuitive, but it struggles when an application needs wide coverage, fault tolerance, or the ability to grow organically.

Mesh networks invert the model by enabling nodes to communicate directly, relaying packets hop-by-hop to make the network resilient and self-healing. In practical terms, that means a sensor buried in a noisy factory corner can still reach a controller hundreds of meters away by handing its message through several neighbor nodes. Redundancy, robustness, and the ability to extend range without boosting transmit power are the reasons embedded control engineers increasingly favor mesh in constrained, distributed systems.

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