Energy Efficient Method For Communication Between A Wireless Sensor Network And An Industrial Control System

A wireless gateway device arranged for communication between a device node in a wireless sensor network and control equipment of an industrial control system comprising a plurality of said device nodes, characterised in that the gateway is arranged for receiving data packets from said sensor network, which data packets include at least one encrypted part, and that the gateway comprises a circuit and a memory storage device arranged with suitable instructions to carry out a method of communication comprising:

• examining said received data packet at the gateway from a said device node in said network and checking for presence of at least one data packet aggregation indicator, indicating an aggregated data packet,
• reconstructing, on finding at least one data packet aggregation indicator a first data packet included in the aggregated data packet by
• a) retrieving a source address of the first data packet, and retrieving a decryption key associated with the source address,
• b) extracting data from the first data packet, and decrypting one or more encrypted data parts of the first data packet, and
• transmitting the reconstructed first data packet to the industrial control system

A computer program product with software code portions or computer code stored on a computer usable medium, comprising computer readable program means for causing a computer or processor of a gateway in a wireless sensor network to carry out the steps of:

• examining said received data packet at the gateway from a said device node in said network and checking for presence of at least one data packet aggregation indicator, indicating an aggregated data packet,
• reconstructing, on finding at least one data packet aggregation indicator, a first data packet included in the aggregated data packet by
• a) retrieving a source address of the first data packet, and retrieving a decryption key associated with the source address,
• b) extracting data from the first data packet, and decrypting one or more encrypted data parts of the first data packet, and
• transmitting the reconstructed first data packet to the industrial control system.

A wireless sensor network system of an industrial control system comprising a plurality of wireless device nodes arranged for communication to a gateway, wherein the wireless communication is arranged for aggregating data originating from at least two data packets, characterised in that said data packets includes at least one encrypted part, that two or more wireless devices comprise a circuit and a memory storage device arranged with suitable instructions to carry out a method of data packet aggregation and the gateway is arranged for detecting and handling the aggregated data packets by carrying out the steps of

• examining said received data packet at the gateway from a node in said network and checking for presence of at least one data packet aggregation indicator, indicating an aggregated data packet,
• reconstructing, on finding at least one data packet aggregation byte, a first data packet included in the aggregated data packet by
• a) retrieving a source address of the first data packet, and retrieving a decryption key associated with the source address,
• b) extracting data from the first data packet, and decrypting one or more encrypted data parts of the first data packet, and
• transmitting the reconstructed first data packet to the industrial control system.