Enabling precise configuration with open standards
When it comes to increasing the performance of industrial environments the ability to use preemptive maintenance methods, utilizing data provided by advanced device diagnostics, is key.
Industrial networking insights
- Edge computing technologies can help companies take advantage of the growing amounts of field data they’re accumulating for non-control tasks such as optimization and maintenance.
- The computing power available on edge devices also creates the possibility for hardware manufacturers to develop new services such as remote condition monitoring, remote diagnostics, and software updates.
The availability of more ever field data – not related to the actual main plant processes – can be used for non-control related tasks such as maintenance and optimization, as described by NAMUR’s NOA concept.”
To get this data devices need to be precisely configured and parameterized and performing this manually is a cumbersome task. “To accomplish this task efficiently, a unified asset management environment, based in open standards, is the most adequate tool,” Biegacki said. The current trend is automating this setup process which requires an unambiguous device information model to correctly identify the devices involved.
“The most efficient solution is to use an OPC-UA compatible, server-based asset management tool which can perform the commissioning of the plant and afterward make available all the data generated by the plant devices, whether that data is required by the control system or by any secondary system,” Biegacki said. “This can be done in a cloud environment in non-critical applications, but in most cases an onsite solution is a better approach. The latest version of the FDT (IEC 62453) technology standard — FDT3 — offers these capacities and additionally allows the possibility of using a single tool for both asset management and control system related configurations and diagnostics for all connected devices. The solution offers a software-based FDT/DTM server environment that comes equipped with OPC-UA and mobility support, enabling this approach to manage industrial device management and IT/OT data-driven operations. The obvious location for this kind of tool, to avoid availability, bandwidth, and lag issues, would be in an edge computing device.”
Biegacki said the use of edge technologies will vary according to the application. “Plants that need to exchange data with cloud-based architectures will benefit from the use of edge computing devices that can pre-process the plant’s data and therefore optimize the use of bandwidth, which is the main limiting factor in current industrial applications. An additional benefit is that both cloud-based applications and local networks will suffer significantly less lag because edge devices can act like a data buffer between these two environments.
“Plants that are not connected to cloud-based services — due to the lack of an adequate network infrastructure — can benefit from edge devices because they frequently incorporate IT standard features such as firewalls, secure communication protocol support and the ample array of standard IT network services, like DHCP and NAT support. In this way brownfield plants can obtain the benefits of cloud access without the requirement of a complete network overhaul.”
The computing power available on edge devices also creates the possibility for hardware manufacturers to develop new services — especially those associated with preemptive maintenance, such as remote condition monitoring, remote diagnostics, and software updates.
Eventually, Biegacki said, edge devices will transform whole sectors of the industry, by turning plain hardware into evolving production platforms, which can have their functionality upgraded and enhanced remotely and have a reserve of computing power to support these capabilities both in the present and in the future.
– This originally appeared on Control Engineering Europe’s website. Edited by Chris Vavra, web content manager, CFE Media and Technology, cvavra@cfemedia.com.
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