The Industrial Internet Consortium Announces Results for the Smart Manufacturing Connectivity for Brown-field Sensors Testbed
Summary
“In discrete manufacturing, the real-time manufacturing sub-systems are generally managed by Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) that make use of data provided by various sensors,” said Dr. Michael Hilgner, Manager Consortia and Standards, TE Connectivity.“However, PLCs in most brown-field facilities are outdated and can’t handle more work beyond the original automation task such as processing a high volume of data required for added value services.“Being able to exchange information between the shop floor and IT systems offers many benefits to manufacturers, including monitoring, controlling and simulating manufacturing processes,” said Erich Clauer, Vice President, Industry Standards & Open Source, SAP.In particular, machine learning algorithms require a high volume of data to reduce the teaching time and to generate reliable models.”The testbed substitutes the I/O module that connects sensors to PLCs in real-time automation systems with a Y-Gateway which re-uses the existing physical cabling.