netX Chip-Carrier for Industrial Ethernet and IoT communication

Compact field devices will increasingly be equipped with more intelligence and functionality. Especially for I4.0 and IIoT a continuous, object-oriented data model from field device to the cloud shall be established. For cloud-based applications, e.g. predictive maintenance or condition monitoring, the relevant objects shall be transmitted directly via IoT communication without detours.

To meet these objectives Hilscher has enhanced its netX Chip-Carrier netRAPID 51 with an integrated OPC UA server and MQTT client. The user can transmit data via OPC UA or MQTT on the same physical cable parallel to the Real-Time Ethernet communication - reactionless and bypassing the PLC.

As normal for compact field devices, the exchange of process- as well as IoT-data to the application processor is done via a 50 MHz fast SPI interface. Thanks to a compatible API existing products can easily be extended with OPC UA and MQTT functionality just per software-update. The customer application only needs to be expanded with an additional object interface for the newly added IoT protocols.