Last year, Hilscher showcased Industry 4.0 solutions under the netIOT banner at the partner stands of SAP, IBM, Microsoft and Intel. This year, Hilscher is returning to Hanover with an ecosystem approach - with its own stand in the largest Industry 4.0 showroom at HMI and with an expanded range of products for end-to-end vertical communication from the industrial network to common on-premise and cloud architectures.

RELIABLE PLATFORM FOR EDGE COMPUTING AND DATA PROCESSING
All solutions are based on the customizable and powerful netIOT Edge Gateway family, the physical interface between IT and OT (Operational Technology). Thanks to the integrated netX communication chip technology and supplemented by the netIOT software offering, status and process data is aggregated from the store floor with minimal engineering effort, enriched with semantic information and securely made available for cloud and IT architectures via established interfaces such as OPC UA or RESTful API. This allows Industry 4.0 applications such as data monitoring, predictive maintenance and asset management to be easily implemented.

In order to do justice to the fast-paced development in the IIoT context, own software solutions are also given a home using Docker in combination with the netIOT Edge family. This means that nothing stands in the way of implementing your own cloud business model.

INCREASING VALUE THROUGH MODULAR SOFTWARE PACKAGES
The current landscape of an automation system usually consists of a heterogeneous field of network participants. The Industry 4.0 environment in particular also harbors the risk that faults can be triggered from outside the automation segment, resulting in avoidable costs. In order to master the diversity of information, Hilscher is presenting additional software packages that fully exploit their strengths in combination with netIOT Edge technology.

Passive fieldbus integration allows data from PROFINET, EtherCAT and other industrial networks to be read and processed. As all network traffic is interpreted in real time in Real-Time Ethernet, no changes need to be made to the PLC for further utilization of the process data. Zero-touch option for your OT environment.

The Hilscher AIN Connector mirrors plants and all components involved as a digital image in the SAP Asset Intelligence Network. The resulting reference image is constantly compared with the real plant constellation using netIOT Edge technology in order to register and report changes in the topology. This interaction between the software components supports plant operators, machine and component manufacturers in collaboratively organizing the operation and maintenance of all store floor components.

netIOT diagnostics supports the system operator in permanently monitoring the status of the network infrastructure. Slowly developing faults can thus be detected in good time before they lead to a standstill. In the event of a sudden malfunction, the user is supported in identifying and rectifying the causes quickly and in a targeted manner.

OPEN EDGE CONNECTIVITY PLATFORM
The netPI CORE 3 is another member of the netPI series - the industrial Raspberry. In the spirit of open innovation, Docker, proprietary or third-party software can be used in the pre-installed container environment in the form of containers in order to use them securely and industrially.

OPC UA TSN LIVE
TSN (Time-Sensitive Network) is the technology standard of the future. Hilscher got involved at an early stage and presented the compatibility of its own netX communication chip technology via a firmware update at a press conference at the Hannover Messe last year.

This year, a real application scenario of the future protocol OPC UA TSN will be shown using a demonstrator that Hilscher has realized with various partners. The focus of the demonstrator is the synchronization of all network participants via TSN.