I was reading an “old” article about Mesh Networking by Wade Paterson the CEO of Synapse Wireless and I was struck by the way the same functions are delivered in new ways.

 

A few years ago peer-to-peer communication became a really hot topic. Its promise was to make the edge independent of a central system and therefore allow for a host of benefits like reduced capital cost and dynamic networking.

 

Companies like Belair, Strix Systems (News - Alert) and Tropos were applying mesh networking to their WiFi systems, which also allowed for some independence. Today in the 4GWE space I hear about Self Organizing Networks, which often has some adaptation of this meshing ability.

 

In my humble opinion, M2M is probably the best place to highlight the advantages of mesh networking. I say this because the distribution of intelligence is what M2M is all about. Reporting about workflow, monitoring processing, supporting alarms are embedded in the nature of M2M solutions for whatever vertical industry we are speaking about.

 

The benefits of “non deterministic” processing is not at the time of install, but at the time of change. And managing change (we could also consider it production) is the rationale for implementing M2M in the first place.

 

The benefits of the mesh come out in three ways.

 

Workflow Analysis: When the elements of a process are all networked and reporting to the business processing systems, the benefit to the project management is enormous, because the critical path issues can be foreseen based on the basic elements and not the processing systems. If materials are missing or the inventory has been misplaced the self organized mesh allows the detection of these problems.

 

Production Scheduling: On the factory floor, if staging of processes are required the systems can look to optimize based on the workflow above and other systems associated with sales and production. This reduces set up time and brings efficiency to the system, it can also be used to trigger sales efforts. This would also apply to transport as packing and shipping can optimize routing.

 

Mass Customization: (I know sometimes that sounds like an oxymoron to me too). The benefit of the nodes being networked wirelessly is the flow of information is independent of last years planning. As requirements change the ability to deliver the information without concern about interactions with legacy equipment makes the mesh an “open” transport for the flow of information even to new yet to be conceived of systems.

 

It’s no wonder that mesh networking has become a staple of all aspects of communication from human to machine, like so many things we build it mimics nature, you could even say it evolves.