A process control system utilizes wireless transceivers to divorce the
field devices from traditional wired network topologies. By providing
field devices with wireless transceivers and shared wireless transceivers
for adapting wired field devices, the field device network may be adapted
to any number of network topologies without concern for additional wiring
costs. Specifically, a power supply can be provided for each field device
or for groups of field devices, as needed. Thus, the entire network can
receive power from a single power bus, without expensive power filtering.
In addition, the network can be a hybrid in which part of the information
is transmitted and received over wired lines and part is transmitted and
received over wireless communications.