BRIDGES ENABLE COMMUNICATION IN REAL TIME
HMS Industrial Networks has introduced a new range of Anybus .NET Bridges for Profibus, Profinet, EtherCAT and EtherNet/IP.
Bridging the gap between operational technology (OT) and IT, the .NET bridge family enables data from industrial machinery to be presented to .NET-based IT applications. The result is that .NET programmers can build a PC program which exchanges live data with a PLC system — for statistics, analysis or maintenance.
The basic prerequisite for Industrial IoT is that IT systems get access to data from industrial applications. However, the fieldbus and industrial Ethernet networks of the factory floor are designed for real-time communication – by default separated from the IT-infrastructure.
The Anybus .NET Bridges address this situation by acting as translators between OT and IT — sending and receiving data between the factory networks and IT platforms using .NET as a framework.
Thanks to the data bridging capabilities of the Anybus .NET Bridges, IT systems get unprecedented access to real-time data from the factory floor which enables predictive maintenance, KPI-follow-up, machine analytics, data mining, big data processing, production statistics and much more – without interfering with the industrial processes.
The solution can be used for a wide range of use cases, from simple transfer of KPI values, advanced messages with structured data types, or ultra-fast transfer of I/O data for “big data.”
“This is the second generation of our .NET bridges,” says James Kime, Product Manager for Anybus gateways.
"The .NET Bridges are truly ‘edge gateways’ in the sense that they establish a bridge between IT and OT. IT programmers get access to data from industrial machinery, while PLC programmers can rest assured that the data access does not interfere with their critical industrial applications and systems.”
HMS Industrial Networks
www.hms-networks.com