netFIELD is Hilscher's new, open, flexible and seamless technology platform. It stands for maximum functionality with minimum manufacturing costs, in order to offer communication as a simple, cost-effective function. netFIELD radically accelerates and simplifies the development of IO devices and edge gateways and enables their management in the cloud. This allows you to focus exclusively on your core differentiation features.
Some keywords about the capabilities of netFIELD can be found here:
| EDGE PORTAL - DEVICE CONNECTION & MANAGEMENT | | | The connection to your device is held by the Edge Portal via the Azure IoT Hub. It uses Edge technologies such as OPC UA, AMQP and TLS/SSL.
The Hilscher solution is based on the Microsoft Azure Reference Architecture using the Azure IoT Edge SDK and other Azure services. It is an open, flexible white labeling platform that can be customized to your corporate design or extended with additional functionality using the additional REST APIs and SDKs. | | | YOUR DIGITAL BUSINESS MODEL | | | Participating in digitization has never been easier than with the netFIELD technology platform. Use different cloud connectors to transport data for customer-specific applications into different clouds.
In addition, you can expand your portfolio with your own software functionalities. You can also use the device data for statistical evaluation and fault diagnosis. The netFIELD technology platform is your Construction kit for your new industry 4.0 service offers. | |
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| EDGE-CONNECTIVITY IN THE IO-LINK DEVICE | | | The chip technology used guarantees long delivery availability and TSN and OPC UA are already taken into account today. The simple integration of edge connectivity can be achieved through the additional use of the netX 4000 network controller. The combination of field device and edge function in only one module eliminates the need for a dedicated edge gateway. | | | FULL DATA OWNERSHIP | | | The integrated edge gateway for netFIELD allows a differentiation between different data types (process data & device data). Even if you do not want to perform an individual data routing, this differentiation already enables the separation of your data from the customer data into completely different cloud systems. The collected and filtered device and process data is made available for cloud applications via a uniform OPC-UA interface. You decide which process/device data is sent to which cloud and displayed there. | |
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| OPTICALLY ACTIVATED BLUETOOTH-CONNECTION | | | The local configuration of the Edge Gateway or the IOLink Master Device is done via Mobile Device App and Bluetooth communication. According to the configured rights, the Blutetooth communication is switched on via a flashing sequence on the Mobile Device and switched off via a blue LED is displayed. This is designed in the form of an M8 connector and can also be used in an IP67 metal housing. | | | SECURITY ON BOARD | | | Based on IEC 62443-4-1 and -4-2, the netFIELD technology platform pursues an integrated security concept, which guarantees encrypted and authenticated M2M communication based on forgery-proof device identities. This is supported by netFIELD on the architectures and recommendations of the Microsoft Azures solution portfolio. In addition, all current netX chips offer hardware accelerations for cryptographic calculations. In addition, a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) is installed in the Edge Gateway. for the safekeeping of your keys. | |
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| FLEXIBILITY AND MODULARITY IN FIELD DEVICE DESIGN | | | You have the possibility to design your own IP67 field device based on the worldwide established communication standard IO-Link. The system scope is scaled by the number of supported fieldbus protocols and the hardware variants. Further market requirements such as Web- or OPC UA Server with IO-Link OPC UA Companion Profile, firmware update options and meanwhile secure data transmission increase the available system scope. | | | DIAGNOSTICS DOWN TO PIN LEVEL | | | The chip set consists of the 10x10mm small multiprotocol controller netX 90, as well as the equally large smart IO-Link transceiver netIOL. The netX 90 has two M4 cores and divides the software into a communication and application part. While the communication is available as scalable standard firmware for Real-Time Ethernet, you can largely design the application part yourself. Up to four netIOL transceivers with four channels each are operated via an SPI interface. Control and monitoring of the inputs and outputs as well as independent error handling of the IO-Link protocol is performed by the CPU contained in the chip. | |
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