Open Sensor Manager for IIoT

Abstract

Data collection in an industrial environment enables several benefits: processes and machinery can be monitored; the performance can be optimized; and the machinery can be proactively maintained. To collect data from machines or production lines, numerous sensors are required, which necessitates a management system. The management of constrained IoT devices such as sensor nodes is extensively studied. However, the previous studies focused only on the remote software updating or configuration of sensor nodes. This paper presents a holistic Open Sensor Manager (OSEMA), which addresses also generating software for different sensor models based on the configuration. In addition, it offers a user-friendly web interface, as well as a REST API (Representational State Transfer Application Programming Interface) for the management. The manager is built with the Django web framework, and sensor nodes rely on ESP32-based microcontrollers. OSEMA enables secure remote software updates of sensor nodes via encryption and hash-based message authentication code. The collected data can be transmitted using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT). The use of OSEMA is demonstrated in an industrial domain with applications estimating the usage roughness of an overhead crane and tracking its location. OSEMA enables retrofitting different sensors to existing machinery and processes, allowing additional data collection.

Towards Integrated Digital Twins for Industrial Products: Case Study on an Overhead Crane

“…It was developed as a practical response to the multitude of existing IoT protocols and communication methods noticed during master's thesis work by Ala-Laurinaho [35]. The work was further developed and published in a journal article [36]. Currently, OSEMA has no publicly available instance, but users can install it to their own server with the source code available at GitHub [37].…”

“…The work was further developed and published in a journal article [36]. Currently, OSEMA has no publicly available instance, but users can install it to their own server with the source code available at GitHub [37].…”

Data Link for the Creation of Digital Twins

“…Nevertheless, some of the CAD files are hosted on a separate server to be accessible via API gateway. 5) Open Sensor Manager allows managing retrofitted sensors [31]. Currently, the position of the trolley and bridge are measured with two distance sensors, and an accelerometer is attached to the hook of the crane.…”

“…6) Regatta IoT Platform platform stores data from retrofitted sensors and allows data analysis. With Regatta, an application that estimates the usage roughness of the crane has been developed [31]. The application uses measurement data from the accelerometer attached to the crane hook to calculate the roughness index.…”

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition Approach in Node-RED: Application and Discussions

“…MQTT and Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) are solutions to integrate data to the cloud, having a well-defined publish-subscribe mechanism that can handle big data. The literature is focusing intensively on MQTT [16][17][18]. The industry is also focusing on MQTT, the protocol being implemented on various PLCs.…”