Token passing techniques to support real time communications on WTPN used for industrial control applications

Wireless Token Passing Networks (WTPN) have gained significant attention in the recent times due to the ability of these networks to overcome the challenge of channel access sharing faced by the wireless networks supporting real-time communications. A WTPN is specified as the network implementing token passing techniques in order to share the wireless channel access medium. In the token passing techniques, only the wireless node holding the token acquires the chance to access the channel, which thereby helps in offering guaranteed channel access time to the nodes connected in the WTPN. The efficiency of token passing techniques in offering guaranteed channel access when compared with master-slave and polling mechanisms resulted in the development of several token passing techniques. This paper intends in surveying and simulating the state-of-art token passing techniques that are applicable for supporting real-time communications over WTPN used for industrial control applications. The theoretical and practical comparison of the token passing techniques presented in this paper can help the practitioners in choosing the suitable token passing technique.