ENABLE BROWN-FIELD MACHINERY FOR IOT APPLICATIONS

Equipping brown-field machinery with condition monitoring and data analytics applications allows to get the IoT-benefit out of existing machine installations. The netFIELD App EtherCAT Tap allows extracting machinery process data simply by monitoring the existing network traffic. There is no need to change PLC or machine configuration. It works with any EtherCAT network, independent of PLC or device vendor.

EASILY INTEGRATED AND CONFIGURED WITHIN MINUTES

IoT-enable your machine within minutes in four simple steps:

  1. Lead out existing network traffic via a network TAP (1) device
  2. Automatically read in the EtherCAT configuration and data semantics by importing the EtherCAT network information (ENI) file.
  3. Select information of interest from the whole machine process data image interactively in the configuration app
  4. Subscribe to MQTT messages in your monitoring or analytics application

As their is no need of touching the network or PLC configuration the required integration effort is minimal. The rich configuration app allows importing symbol information directly from a EtherCAT network information (ENI) file.

(1)
TAP = Terminal Access Port, a hardware device which allows mirroring network traffic without interference to existing infrastructure

HOW IT WORKS UNDER THE HOOD

Containerized software

  • The netFIELD App EtherCAT Tap is delivered as a containerized software which allows easy deployment and software management.
  • The software container delivers a built-in rich configuration app which can be used easily via a web-browser without the need of installing any additional software tools.

Deep packet inspection with integrated fieldbus intelligence

  • The netFIELD App EtherCAT Tap analyses the existing machine network traffic using deep packet inspection technologies.
  • It "understands" the fieldbus protocol by itself and thus does not require you as an end-user to deep-dive into fieldbus technology.
  • Due to the listening-only functionality, netFIELD App EtherCAT Tap is absolutely invisible to your existing machine components and thus cannot disturb the existing process.

Form data to information

  • The extracted raw fieldbus data is automatically enriched by semantics during the capture process.
  • The required semantic information can be read in by using the EtherCAT network information (ENI) file, provided by TwinCAT or any other compatible Engineering tool.
  • Of course, it is always possible to "fine tune" semantics manually via the configuration app.

There is no need of touching your working machine, nor changing PLC or machine configuration

Automatic EtherCAT configuration and semantic import from TwinCAT

Secure by design due to the listening-only functionality

ArticleOrder NumberCategory
netFIELD App
EtherCAT Tap		 Data Acquisition