KR102262321B1 - IoT GATEWAY SYSTEM FOR INDUSTRIAL - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention is an industrial IoT gateway system which handles data from various protocol types of edge devices regardless of protocols and performs edge computing. The industrial IoT gateway system comprises: an edge device that generates edge data including at least one of sensor data and facility data; a cloud that provides at least one of a cloud service, a web service, a smart manufacturing system (MES) service, and an ERP service; and an edge gateway that receives the edge data, processes the edge data, and transmits the edge data to the cloud.

Description

Industrial IoT gateway system {IoT GATEWAY SYSTEM FOR INDUSTRIAL}

The present invention is an industrial IoT gateway system that handles data from edge devices of various protocol types regardless of protocols and performs edge computing.

In the case of small and medium-sized manufacturing companies lacking manpower and capital, most of the demand for building a smart factory at the basic or intermediate level was found to be the most demanding for shortening the construction period and minimizing the introduction cost. There is a need for a low-cost smart factory solution that can be used universally for many small and medium-sized domestic manufacturers operating mainly on small manufacturing facilities.

In addition, in the industrial IoT, edge devices, for example, sensors or facilities, have various communication protocols, so a solution in which users do not manage various communication protocols is needed.

US 10-2019-0079917 A

The present invention is an industrial IoT that enables easy, simple and efficient interworking/management of various facilities/sensors in small and medium-sized manufacturing sites, and enables smart factory construction without an expensive smart manufacturing system (MES) or Cloud Platform by applying edge computing technology. The purpose is to provide a sensor gateway system.

In addition, by solving the interface with various sensors/facilities in the industrial field with a single device, it is possible to reduce the installation, management and maintenance costs of sensors/facilities, and to perform data processing, automatic correction, self-diagnosis, and decision-making functions. It aims to provide a high-function, high-convenience, high-value industrial IoT sensor gateway system.

An industrial IoT gateway system according to an embodiment of the present invention includes: an edge device that generates edge data including at least one of sensor data and facility data; Cloud providing at least one service of a cloud service, a web service, a smart manufacturing system (MES) service, and an ERP service; and an edge gateway that receives the edge data, processes the edge data, and transmits the edge data to the cloud, wherein the edge gateway receives the edge data from the edge device and manages various communication protocols edge device connection; a multi-protocol adaptation unit for transmitting the received edge data to at least one of an internal application program and an external cloud according to a preset policy; an edge application unit providing an application service by driving an application program using the edge data received from the multi-protocol adaptation unit; and an external connection unit for transmitting edge data received from the multi-protocol adaptation unit to the cloud.

In addition, the edge device connection unit has a network expansion slot unit for expanding a communication environment by mounting various communication modules, and the communication module is a Wi-Fi module, a LoRa module, an NB-IoT module, a Zigbee module, a Bluetooth module, a Wi- It is any one of a SUN module, a CANbus module, an RS-238/485 module, and an Ethernet module, and some of the communication modules may be fixedly mounted to the edge device connection unit.

In addition, the multi-protocol adaptor includes: a multi-protocol manager for identifying the communication module mounted on the network expansion slot unit and generating an agent for managing a communication protocol supported by the identified communication module; a data manager that manages the edge data received from the multi-protocol manager and determines whether to perform edge computing on the edge data; and if the edge data is data for edge computing, a service API manager for receiving the edge data and providing an application service.

In addition, the edge application unit may include an edge gateway application and control-analysis unit.

In addition, the edge gateway application may include: an edge rule engine for registering, changing, or deleting a rule for processing the edge data; an edge data handler for preprocessing, filtering, and correcting the edge data according to the rule; and an edge real-time service that manages the rules and detects events or failures.

In addition, the rule may include a rule for correcting the edge data and correcting a defect, a rule for filtering or transforming data, and a rule for detecting an event or a failure.

In addition, the control-analysis unit may control and analyze the equipment built by the edge device using the data transmitted from the edge gateway application.

The edge gateway according to an embodiment of the present invention receives edge data that generates edge data including at least one of sensor data and equipment data, processes the edge data, and performs cloud service, web service, and smart manufacturing system (MES). ) an edge gateway for transmitting the edge data to a cloud providing at least one of a service and an ERP service, comprising: an edge device connection unit configured to receive the edge data from the edge device and manage various communication protocols; a multi-protocol adaptation unit for transmitting the received edge data to at least one of an internal application program and an external cloud according to a preset policy; an edge application unit providing an application service by driving an application program using the edge data received from the multi-protocol adaptation unit; and an external connection unit for transmitting edge data received from the multi-protocol adaptation unit to the cloud.

The industrial IoT gateway system according to the present invention does not require a user to manage various communication protocols, and can provide cost reduction, high functionality, and high convenience by supporting edge computing.

1 is a block diagram of an industrial IoT gateway system according to the present invention;
Fig. 2 is a block diagram of the edge gateway of Fig. 1;
Fig. 3 is a block diagram of the edge device connection of Fig. 2;
4 is a block diagram of the multi-protocol adaptation unit of FIG. 2;
5 is a block diagram of the edge application of FIG. 2, and
FIG. 6 is a block diagram of an external connection of FIG. 2 .

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in more detail with reference to the drawings.

Terms such as first, second, etc. may be used to describe various elements, but the elements should not be limited by the terms. The above terms are used only for the purpose of distinguishing one component from another. For example, without departing from the scope of the present invention, a first component may be referred to as a second component, and similarly, a second component may also be referred to as a first component. and/or includes a combination of a plurality of related listed items or any of a plurality of related listed items. 'or' may be construed as a logical exclusive sum in context, but in general, unless there is a direct description such as 'otherwise' or 'logical exclusion', it has the same meaning as 'and/or', that is, it is interpreted as a logical sum. do.

When a component is referred to as being “connected” or “connected” to another component, it is understood that the other component may be directly connected or connected to the other component, but other components may exist in between. it should be On the other hand, when it is mentioned that a certain element is "directly connected" or "directly connected" to another element, it should be understood that the other element does not exist in the middle. Also, when the first component and the second component on the network are connected or connected, it means that data can be exchanged between the first component and the second component by wire or wirelessly.

In addition, the suffixes "module" and "part" for the components used in the following description are given simply in consideration of the ease of writing the present specification, and do not give a particularly important meaning or role by themselves. Accordingly, the terms “module” and “unit” may be used interchangeably.

When these components are implemented in actual applications, two or more components may be combined into one component, or one component may be subdivided into two or more components as needed. The same reference numerals are assigned to the same or similar components throughout the drawings, and detailed descriptions of the components having the same reference numerals may be omitted instead of being replaced with the descriptions of the above-described components.

Furthermore, the invention encompasses all possible combinations of the embodiments indicated herein. Various embodiments of the present invention are different, but not mutually exclusive. One embodiment of a particular shape, structure, function, and characteristic described herein may be embodied in another embodiment. For example, components mentioned in the first and second embodiments may perform all functions of the first and second embodiments.

1 is a block diagram of an industrial IoT gateway system according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the edge gateway of FIG. 1, FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the edge device connection unit of FIG. 2, and FIG. 4 is a multi-protocol adaptation unit of FIG. FIG. 5 is a block diagram of the edge application part of FIG. 2 , and FIG. 6 is a block diagram of the external connection part of FIG. 2 .

Referring to FIG. 1 , the industrial IoT gateway system may include an edge device 10 , an edge gateway 20 , and a cloud 30 .

The edge device 10 is a variety of devices used in industry, a sensor device, an actuator, a physical measuring instrument, PLC (Logic Controller), DCS (Distributed Control System), OPC (OLE for process control), and / or DBMS ( Database Management System) and the like. The edge device 10 is not limited thereto, and may be various devices, and may be various things of the IoT or IIoT.

The edge device 10 may be a part of equipment or apparatus, and such equipment or apparatus may construct a system such as a factory.

The edge device 10 may output facility data and sensor data (hereinafter, 'edge data'). The edge data may include at least one of temperature, humidity, brightness, dust (carbon), pressure, vibration, voltage, current, parallelism, magnetism, illuminance, proximity, and distance.

The edge device 10 may communicate with the outside in short-distance/long-distance and wired/wireless communication, and may transmit edge data to the outside.

The edge device 10 may have a different communication protocol for each device. Accordingly, the AP (Access Point) should have all communication protocols and be able to collect data according to each communication protocol. The industrial IoT gateway system according to the present invention can solve this problem.

The edge gateway 20 may receive the edge data of the edge device 10 , process the edge data or transmit it to the external cloud 30 .

The edge gateway 20 may provide edge computing. Edge computing is a distributed, open IT architecture that can provide distributed processing power to support mobile computing and/or Internet of Things (IoT) technologies.

The edge gateway 20 provides edge computing, enabling real-time data processing without latency, supporting the acceleration of data flow, and reducing latency in response to data almost immediately as it is generated. , by supporting efficient data processing, Internet bandwidth usage can be reduced, and useful security services can be provided by not using the public domain.

The edge gateway 20 may not only process data by itself, but also select it or transmit it to the cloud 30 according to a preset policy.

The cloud 30 may be an external network connected to the edge gateway 20 . The cloud 30 may be various cloud platforms such as the Internet, a server providing services, a smart manufacturing system (MES) deployed in a factory, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA).

Referring to FIG. 2 , the edge gateway 20 may include an edge device connection unit 100 , a multi-protocol adaptation unit 200 , an edge application unit 300 , and an external connection unit 400 .

The edge device connector 100 may communicate with the edge device 10 . As noted above, edge device 10 may have any communication protocol. Accordingly, the edge device connection unit 100 should be able to provide various communication protocols.

The edge device connection unit 100 may support various standard protocols, industry standards, and non-standard protocols (provided by sensor/equipment manufacturers) in order to collect data of manufacturing facilities and sensors. For example, the edge device connection unit 100 supports a PLC (Logic Controller), a universal asynchronous transceiver (UART), RS-485, USB, RTC, TCP/IP, and the like. IoT sensor integrated module (M3) is a wireless communication module that follows Bluetooth, Zigbee, infrared communication (IrDA), Wi-Fi communication protocols, and LoRa that follows the LoRa communication protocol. LoRa) communication module, 3G, LTE, LTE-M communication protocol can be supported.

Referring to FIG. 3 , the edge device connection unit 100 may include a network expansion slot unit 110 capable of expanding various communication modules. The communication module may include a Wi-Fi module, a LoRa module, an NB-IoT module, a Zigbee module, a Bluetooth module, a Wi-SUN module, a CANbus module, an RS-238/485 module, an Ethernet module, and the like.

In the edge device connection unit 100 , some of the above-mentioned communication modules are fixedly mounted, and the communication protocol may be appropriately extended by mounting the communication module according to the communication protocol of the edge device 10 .

The multi-protocol adaptation unit 200 may be compatible so that the edge data received from the edge device connection unit 100 can be used in other applications or cloud services. The multi-protocol adaptation unit 200 may transmit edge data to either or both of the edge application unit 300 or the external connection unit 400 as needed or according to a policy.

Referring to FIG. 4 , the multi-protocol adaptor 200 may include a multi-protocol manager 210 , a data manager 220 , and a service API manager 230 .

The multi-protocol manager 210 may include a plug-in manager, various agents, and a common protocol handler.

The plug-in manager may identify a communication module mounted in the network expansion slot unit 110 and create an agent that manages a communication protocol supported by the corresponding communication module.

Agents can be created virtualized like containers or virtual machines (VMs).

The agent may be an OPC-UA agent, a SECS-I agent, an HSMS agent, a MODBUS agent, a PROFINET agent, an MQTT agent, a CoAP agent, and an EtherNet-IP agent.

The common protocol handler converts the received edge data into a higher layer protocol, etc., so that it can be used by other AIPs or services. The common protocol handler may switch protocols so that edge data can be used by the edge application unit 300 or the cloud 30 .

The data manager 220 may manage edge data received from the multi-protocol manager 210 . The data manager 220 may determine whether to perform edge computing on edge data. If it is determined that it is edge data to be edge computed, the data manager 220 may transmit the edge data to the service API manager 230 . Otherwise, the data manager 220 may transmit the edge data to the external connection unit 400 .

The service API manager 230 may perform a management function of delivering edge data to various APIs. The service API manager 230 may perform authentication, service API control, and the like.

The edge application unit 300 may drive several applications. The edge application unit 300 may be a pivotal part for enabling the edge gateway 20 to perform edge computing functions.

The edge application unit 300 processes some of the data processing, analysis and control functions provided by the cloud platform and enterprise computer system (MES, etc.) in a short distance to the facilities/sensors of the manufacturing site, thereby improving the performance of smart factory application services. can

The edge application unit 300 intelligently filters/combines/corrects/analyzes data collected from various sensors/equipment, so that an edge computing concept for improving the performance of smart factory applications, services, and systems can be applied.

Referring to FIG. 5 , the edge application unit 300 may include an edge gateway application 310 and a control-analysis unit 360 .

The edge gateway application 310 may include an edge rule engine 320 , an edge data handler 330 , and an edge real-time service 340 .

The edge rule engine 320 may register, change, or delete a rule for processing edge data. The rule may include a rule for correcting data including edge data or correcting a defect, a rule for filtering or transforming data, a rule for detecting an event or a failure, and the like.

The edge data handler 330 may preprocess, filter, and/or correct data according to rules.

The edge real-time service 340 may operate in real time to manage rules and detect events or failures, and may control other components or data.

The control-analysis unit 360 may control or analyze the edge device 10 or the equipment/system built by the edge device 10 using the data transmitted from the edge gateway application 310 .

The control-analysis unit 360 may include a big-data platform 370 , an edge analysis unit 380 , and an edge monitoring-diagnosis unit 390 .

The big-data platform 370 may collect and/or store data. The big-data platform 370 may pre-process and analyze data. The big-data platform 370 may include an operating system for processing big data.

The edge analyzer 380 may analyze machine learning for control and/or analysis or develop a model.

The edge analyzer 380 may store facility/sensor data based on big data and build a platform. The edge analyzer 380 may select a machine learning data analysis algorithm (RNN, LSTM, CNN, etc.) or design it by application. The edge analyzer 380 may learn an analysis algorithm or verify suitability.

The edge monitoring-diagnosing unit 390 may monitor an industrial site and design a predictive maintenance function.

The edge monitoring-diagnosing unit 390 may select equipment/sensors/data to be monitored and design a monitoring policy. The edge monitoring-diagnosing unit 390 may define process variables affecting equipment/process conditions. The edge monitoring-diagnosing unit 390 may design a statistical analysis-based sensing data analysis and prediction technology. The edge monitoring-diagnosing unit 390 may design a predictive maintenance function to which a machine learning analysis algorithm is applied.

The edge monitoring-diagnosing unit 390 may design a remote control function in a mobile terminal such as a smart phone or a tablet PC.

The external connection unit 400 may send and receive data to and from the cloud 30 . The external connection unit 400 transmits the edge data received from the edge application unit 300 (particularly, the data manager 220 ) to the cloud 30 to request a necessary service or receive a corresponding service.

Referring to FIG. 6 , the external connection unit 400 may include a cloud management module 410 , a data broker manager 420 , and a data broker 430 .

The cloud management module 410 may manage which service of the cloud 30 to send the edge data to.

The data broker manager 420 may transmit edge data to a data broker 430 that manages a cloud service to which edge data will be transmitted.

The data broker 430 may convert edge data to be suitable for a corresponding cloud service. The data broker 430 may include an MES data broker, an ERP data broker, a cloud data broker, a web data broker, and the like.

Each broker can transmit the corresponding data to the server that provides the corresponding service. Brokers can be created in bundles.

The present invention may be implemented in hardware or software. Implementation The present invention can also be implemented as computer-readable codes on a computer-readable recording medium. That is, it may be implemented in the form of a recording medium including instructions executable by a computer. The computer readable medium includes any type of medium in which data that can be read by a computer system is stored. Computer-readable media may include computer storage media and communication storage media. Computer storage media includes all storable media implemented as any method or technology for information storage, such as computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules, and other data, and includes volatile/nonvolatile/hybrid memory. Whether or not, it is not limited to whether it is a detachable/non-separable type. Communication storage media includes a modulated data signal or transmission mechanism, such as a carrier wave, any information delivery media, and the like. And functional programs, codes, and code segments for implementing the present invention can be easily inferred by programmers in the art to which the present invention pertains.

In addition, although preferred embodiments of the present invention have been illustrated and described above, the present invention is not limited to the specific embodiments described above, and the technical field to which the present invention belongs without departing from the gist of the present invention as claimed in the claims In addition, various modifications are possible by those of ordinary skill in the art, and these modifications should not be individually understood from the technical spirit or perspective of the present invention.

10: edge device
20: edge gateway

Claims (4)

an edge device that generates edge data including at least one of sensor data and facility data;
Cloud providing at least one service of a cloud service, a web service, a smart manufacturing system (MES) service, and an ERP service; and
an edge gateway that receives the edge data, processes the edge data, and transmits the edge data to the cloud;
The edge gateway may include: an edge device connection unit configured to receive the edge data from the edge device and manage various communication protocols; a multi-protocol adaptation unit for transmitting the received edge data to at least one of an internal application program and an external cloud according to a preset policy; an edge application unit providing an application service by driving an application program using the edge data received from the multi-protocol adaptation unit; and an external connection unit for transmitting the edge data received from the multi-protocol adaptation unit to the cloud,
The edge device connection unit includes a network expansion slot unit for expanding the communication environment by mounting various communication modules,
The multi-protocol adapting unit may include: a multi-protocol manager for identifying the communication module mounted on the network expansion slot unit and generating an agent for managing a communication protocol supported by the identified communication module; a data manager that manages the edge data received from the multi-protocol manager and determines whether to perform edge computing on the edge data; and a service API manager for receiving the edge data and providing an application service if the edge data is data for edge computing,
The agent is created by virtualization,
The agent is any one of an OPC-UA agent, a SECS-I agent, an HSMS agent, a MODBUS agent, a PROFINET agent, an MQTT agent, a CoAP agent, and an EtherNet-IP agent;
The multi-protocol manager converts the received edge data into a higher layer protocol, allows it to be used by other AIPs and services, and converts protocols so that the edge data can be used by the edge application unit and the cloud. A common protocol handler provided,
The edge application unit includes an edge gateway application and control-analysis unit,
The edge gateway application may include: an edge rule engine for registering, changing, or deleting a rule for processing the edge data; an edge data handler for preprocessing, filtering, and correcting the edge data according to the rule; and an edge real-time service that manages the rules and operates and detects events or failures in real time,
The rule comprises a rule for correcting the edge data and correcting a defect, a rule for filtering or transforming data, a rule for detecting an event or a failure,
The control-analysis unit controls and analyzes equipment built by the edge device using the data transmitted from the edge gateway application,
The control-analysis unit collects and stores data, pre-processes and analyzes the data, and a big-data platform having an operating system for processing big data; Analyze and develop machine learning models for control and analysis, store the facility and sensor data based on big data, build a platform, select machine learning data analysis algorithms (RNN, LSTM, CNN, etc.) Verification of the edge analysis unit; and selecting equipment and sensor data to be monitored, designing monitoring policies, defining process variables affecting equipment and process conditions, designing statistical analysis-based sensing data analysis and prediction technology, and analyzing the machine learning data and an edge monitoring-diagnostic unit that designs a predictive maintenance function to which an algorithm is applied;
The external connection unit 400 includes a cloud management module 410 that manages which service of the cloud 30 to send the edge data; and a data broker 430 that converts the edge data to be suitable for a corresponding cloud service. delete delete delete

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