CEC Semester Fourteen 2018
Designing a Robust IIoT to SCADA Gateway
Charles J. Lord -
October 22,
2018
The Challenges of IIoT and Industrial Ethernet
ToDay, factories and production facilities are becoming more advanced in order to improve productivity and safety. These advances are based on converting to open or Ethernet network communication. Several technical requirements demanded of the equipment used at factories include support for open network communications protocols, such as PROFINET, EtherCAT, CAN, and Modbus. However, there are additional buses that provide high-speed, real-time performance and low power consumption to achieve high productivity, such as EtherCAT, PROFINET IRT, and SERCOSIII. In our first class, we will look at some of these protocols and their needs.
Course Resources
Special Educational Materials
October 23,
2018
Introduction to the RZ/N1
In our second class, we will investigate an innovative example circuit for interfacing with the myriad industrial Ethernet standards: the Renesas RZ/N1D chip and its development board set. The RZ/N1D is a multiprocessor system-on-a-chip that provides dual ARM Cortex-A7 cores for application processing and system control along with a Cortex M3 chip as a dedicated control processor for up to five high-speed Ethernet ports. We will look at depth at the various other ports and features of the hardware provided in this 400 pin BGA IC.
Course Resources
Special Educational Materials
October 24,
2018
Many Protocols, One Abstraction - GOAL
Meeting the challenge of designing an industrial controller or IIoT gateway is a daunting process when we are faced with multiple industrial Ethernet protocols. In our third class, we will look at the Generic Open Abstraction Layer (GOAL) from PORT GmbH. Provided by Renesas as middleware for their Ethernet communication and control block, GOAL allows the development of an application independent of the protocols implemented at each port.
Course Resources
Special Educational Materials
October 25,
2018
Programming the R-IN Protocol Engine
In our penultimate class, we will build on the GOAL stacks and build interfaces for some sample industrial Ethernet protocols and monitor them with a basic Linux-based application.
Course Resources
Special Educational Materials
October 26,
2018
Writing and Testing Our Application
Now that we have our communication I/O designed, we will build and test a representative solution for our Industrial Internet of Things design in our final class. We also will look at how we can implement the safety and security features that will be needed for a robust IIoT solution.
Course Resources
Special Educational Materials
Instructor
Charles J. Lord