Success Story: Flexible integration of industrial protocols in IPCs

The customers of ADS-TEC Industrial IT from modern machine and plant construction often face the challenge of connecting their Industrial PCs to different communication networks. For this purpose, they require versatile connectivity and compatibility with all common industrial communication standards.
The integration of a wide range of fixed PC cards from other manufacturers potentially entails high costs for ADS-TEC Industrial IT as a manufacturer of Industrial PCs through individual development efforts, such as the mechanical adaptation of the Industrial PC with regard to internal cable routing and interface slots. For ADS-TEC Industrial IT, these adaptations are usually associated with a time-consuming development process, which often only pays off economically for larger projects.

With the innovative industrial design and the sophisticated functionalities of the new Series 9000, consisting of Touch Panel PCs and a combination of Box PC and Touch Panel Monitor, ADS-TEC Industrial IT responds to the diverse requirements of the industry. A central aspect of the development of the Series 9000 was the need-oriented integration of various industrial protocols such as PROFINET, EtherCAT or Ethernet/IP.

More flexibility in planning and construction

This allows machine and plant manufacturers to benefit from a high degree of flexibility in planning, component procurement and the construction of their machines. In addition, the expenditure for forecasting and stockpiling of various Industrial PC variants with different, fixed fieldbus/RTE cards is reduced.

In order to meet the initial challenges of its customers, ADS-TEC Industrial IT uses the proven netJACK interchangeable module from Hilscher in the new Series 9000. In addition to the possibility of mapping all common industrial protocols of factory automation with master as well as with slave or device functionalities, the PCI Express connection option was a unique selling point with which the netJACK module sets itself apart from its competitors.

The Nuertingen-based company can thus equip its IPCs directly with a physical real-time Ethernet interface without additional cabling and can rely on Hilscher‘s proven protocol stacks. This allows ADS-TEC Industrial IT to save costs for the development of its own firmware.

Without any additional development effort, a whole range of fieldbus or real-time Ethernet protocols can be integrated into the IPCs of ADS-TEC Industrial IT – even without the use of tools when installing the module. If the communication protocol used by an IPC needs to be changed, the firmware of the module can be easily adapted to the new requirements and the required software can be loaded onto the netJACK module. This has reduced the variety of devices and enabled the end user to flexibly integrate the industrial protocols. The adaptation can be carried out at any point in the supply chain, even by the end customer himself.

ADS-TEC Industrial IT has been using Hilscher technology for several years. Due to the well-known ecosystem and the platform concept of Hilscher, the switch to a module-based solution for the Nuertingen IPC specialist could be realized without much effort. Therefore, Hilscher technology at ADS-TEC Industrial IT will also be an integral part of new products based on Intel Whiskey Lake.