HART (Highway Addressable Remote Transducer) is the protocol for bus-addressed field devices. It is not a fieldbus, but a version of the digital field communication that contains many of the functionalities of fieldbuses.

WirelessHART is the wireless HART communication to fieldbuses in the process industry. The HART Communication Foundation (HCF) specified WirelessHART and published it as part of the HART standard V7.1. The radio transmission is based on the wireless communications standard IEEE 802.15.4. High availability is achieved by means of the meshed network architecture (each field device is simultaneously a repeater) with redundant communication paths and constantly changing frequency channels (channel hopping). 128-bit encryption in conjunction with authentication and validation of each data packet ensures secure data transfer and prevents unauthorized access to the field devices.

As a basic principle, a WirelessHART network consists of WirelessHART field devices and a WirelessHART gateway that receives the data from the field devices and forwards it to the automation system.

Wireless communication with WirelessHART