gateways are the key to easily connecting devices and equipment to the internet, and they pave the way for secure M2M communication. It is this goal that Wieland Electric is also pursuing with its wienet IoT gateways, which are part of the wienet cloud services. With their OPC UA server function, they enable the transmission of data to all OPC UA-compatible cloud systems
In future, the gateways will also have an OPC UA client for full support of the open communication standard. Based on the “Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture”, machine data can not only be transported, but also be described semantically in a machine-readable manner, thereby enabling a secure, standardized, and seamless exchange of data and information between various devices, machines, and services, even from different industries.
Alongside the Kolibri protocol for communication with the wienet cloud, the wienet IoT gateways can also transmit data via MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport). This open messaging protocol is especially useful where messages need to be transmitted reliably over unreliable networks, such as mobile ones.
It is easy to deploy even on devices with low memory and high-performance computing power, and is ideal for communicating with sensors, actuators, cell phones, and also embedded systems in vehicles where bandwidth and energy are limited.
With the IoT gateways and the software and cloud solutions to suit, Wieland primarily supports small and medium-sized machinery and equipment manufacturers with the simple implementation of IIoT applications. Even older machines, which are difficult to retrofit with additional sensors, can be made IIoT-compatible with the devices.
These gateways act not only as a data interface and filter, but also as a WebPLC since they have a local web server. This means that logic and alarm functions can be parameterized and programmed, thereby enabling, among other things, logical connections, comparisons, or also preliminary calculations of, for example, temperatures. In addition, the devices can be accessed remotely, securely and easily via a VPN.