Fraunhofer Center for Assistive Information and Communication Solutions – AICOS10.1.2017
Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS will design and develop an industrial gateway for a development project led by Bresimar Automação.
The partnership between Bresimar Automação, Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS and Instituto de Telecomunicações de Aveiro is producing the first results in a new research project, which will materialize a new line of differentiating products for industrial sensorization and instrumentation. The products will make use of emerging technologies that represent the technological state of art for sensorization, wireless communications and cloud computing.
Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS is in charge of the design and development of an industrial gateway for the storing, forwarding and visualization of data from the wireless sensors. This gateway has the possibility to integrate new hardware communication modules connected through an expansion bus and respective support for the main non-proprietary industrial communication protocols. Also, the gateway will provide an interface for integration with third-party systems (RESTful API), a web-based portal and integration with cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT) platforms.
The project has an estimated duration of two years and aims to achieve a fully developed and validated prototypes (including global RF – Radio Frequency certification) of the proposed products, ready for the start of the production and commercialization process.
The interest on wireless sensor networks has been significantly increasing over the last decade. Most of the current deployments have been on scenarios where there is no possibility of using traditional cabled solutions. Wireless systems have not been considered the preferred option for industrial sensors communication, but a convenient alternative for situations where the installation of traditional systems is impossible or very difficult.
The growing interest by the market on the IoT can potentially change this scenario. Companies are lately focusing on the integration between their industrial automation systems and enterprise management systems and the IoT promise is getting tangible by the day. The technological innovations in the areas of sensorization, wireless communications, energy harvesting systems, big data and cloud computing are now being part of these new ecosystems which promote the continuous exchange of information between devices, systems and humans and which makes way for better performance, flexibility and delivery capacity in the company's value chain. This industrial approach, usually called Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), tries to integrate new concepts as smart factory, smart city and smart home.