Wireless Network Requirements and Solutions for the Future Circular Collider: A Hostile Indoor Environment

The European organization for nuclear research (CERN) is planning a high performance particle collider by 2050, which will update the currently used Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The design of the new experiment facility includes the definition of a suitable communication infrastructure to support the future needs of scientists. The huge amount of data collected by the measurement devices call for a data rate of at least 1Gb/s per node, while the need of timely control of instruments requires a low latency of the order of 0.01μs. Moreover, the main tunnel will be 100 km long, and will need appropriate coverage for voice and data traffic, in a special underground environment subject also to strong radiations. Reliable voice, data and video transmission in a tunnel of this length is necessary to ensure timely and localized intervention, reducing access time. In addition, using wireless communication for voice, control and data acquisition of accelerator technical systems could lead to a significant reduction in cabling costs, installation times and maintenance efforts. The communication infrastructure of the Future Circular Collider (FCC) tunnel must be able to circumvent the problems of radioactivity, omnipresent in the tunnel. Current technologies transceivers cannot transmit in such a severely radioactive environment. This is due to the immediate destruction of any active or passive equipment by radioactivity. The scope of this paper is to determine the feasibility of robust wireless transmission in an underground radioactive tunnel environment. The network infrastructure design to meet the demand will be introduced, and the performance of different wireless technologies will be evaluated.