GAITHERSBURG, MD-The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the United States Council for Automotive Research (USCAR), an umbrella organization for collaborative research between Chrysler LLC, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp., have conducted measurements to assess the use of a wireless environment in automotive manufacturing facilities.

The findings, available in the report “NIST Tests of the Wireless Environment in Automobile Manufacturing Facilities,” indicate that such facilities are highly reflective, reverberant environments that can complicate reliable performance of wireless technology.

According to NIST and USCAR, the measured results provide key parameters that describe the wireless propagation environment, which will be useful for assessing current and future deployment of wireless technology in industrial manufacturing, for standards development and for qualifying the performance of wireless equipment used in highly reflective environments. Using the measured data, NIST is currently developing laboratory-based methods for qualifying wireless equipment for use in highly reflective environments.