Discussion on the architecture design of industria

Talking about the architecture design of the industrial IOT cloud platform project

the concept of "IOT" had existed as early as 1999, but it was not until a decade later in 2009 that IBM proposed the concept of "smart earth" that many countries promoted the research and development of IOT to the strategic level. However, it is a pity that until 2015, the development of IOT in China is still mainly driven by government projects, so the prospect of development now seems to be more and more uncertain

the government seems to be aware of this problem. With the advocacy and promotion of some Internet companies, it has put forward the concept of "Internet +". Although "Internet +" and "IOT" are both dominant, the emphasis of development is fundamentally different. "Interconnection +" is to build an interconnected ecosystem based on interconnection, supplemented by peripheral intelligent modules and sensors. The "IOT" is based on interconnection, focusing on sensor data acquisition, equipment control and remote monitoring

but now many Internet companies, What we do is "Internet +" but we publicize it in the name of "IOT". So now people are more and more confused about the true positioning of "IOT".

I always think that from a technical point of view, the so-called "IOT" "Is an extension of traditional industrial control. Traditional industrial sites, considering production safety, are all internal networks. In addition, the cost of implementation and maintenance is relatively high. Today, with the increasingly perfect Internet and mobile Internet, there are requirements for remote measurement and control in various fields. For example, at present, typical agricultural greenhouse monitoring, forest fire prevention monitoring, fish pond monitoring and aquaculture management.

" Internet + "and" IOT " Due to the different emphasis of development, the architectural design must be different. In fact, the project of "Internet +" pays more attention to the number of users and communication data flow, which is the symbol of measuring the success of a "Internet +" project. Of course, this is also the most important thing for those Internet companies that focus on cloud platforms. The number of users and communication data flow are their benefits.

while the "IOT" project, which focuses on small and medium-sized projects, actually pays more attention to the stability and reliability of the system, It can ensure the long-term stable operation of the system, because some monitoring points are often deployed in inaccessible places, and the reliability of the system becomes the key. Second, the system is easy to develop and maintain, because based on different industries and different process requirements, it is difficult to develop general products in the civil field, and the relevant business logic and monitoring screen need to be adjusted according to the actual situation on site, so whether it is easy to develop is very critical. Of course, maintenance is more important, because industrial "IOT" projects are generally designed to have a life cycle of at least three years or more, so project maintenance is inevitable, and even the system will change according to the changes of on-site process, Ease of maintenance is an indispensable element of the "IOT" project.

from the above description, we can clearly understand that from a technical point of view, the architecture design of "Internet +" and "IOT" projects is very different. This article mainly introduces the architecture design and implementation of industrial "IOT" projects

concept and characteristics of industrial IOT

since the author has worked in the traditional industrial control field for 7 years, the understanding of "IOT" is more from the perspective of industrial control 7 The full digital, 3-loop (force, deformation, displacement) control system based on Neuron Adaptive PID algorithm is considered. The so-called industrial IOT is not a IOT in the industrial field, but a IOT project with the characteristics of the industrial field, such as related projects in the fields of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery. Unlike projects in the industrial field, it is not so large and strict, and the data collected and monitored is relatively small. It is sensitive to the cost of equipment, implementation and maintenance, and generally requires remote monitoring. But the same requirement is that the equipment should be stable and reliable, easy to adjust the control strategy according to the process requirements, easy to upgrade, expand and easy to maintain

traditional industrial control projects are generally relatively large, with many links and long development and implementation cycles. Of course, the cost of the project is also relatively high. Often a company that implements industrial control projects should also distinguish the phenomenon of using raw metal fatigue to bring harm according to different environments. It is already very busy to do more than a dozen such projects a year. In the era of IOT, due to the relatively perfect infrastructure of Internet and mobile Internet, cloud service companies also emerge in endlessly, which can complete some projects relatively quickly at the least cost

as the cost of development and implementation is greatly reduced, the fields that can be done have been greatly expanded, forming a virtuous circle. The more you do, the more reliable and cheaper you are. The cheaper it is, the more projects it can do

architecture design idea of industrial IOT project

I understand some characteristics of industrial IOT project, so I have direction and ideas in architecture design. First, from the perspective of technology, a typical IOT project at present has at least three parts: the first is the device end, the second is the cloud (mainly refers to the public cloud), and the third is the monitoring end

1. Device end architecture design

the device end is mainly responsible for data collection, process logic implementation and control

no matter how many devices are at the bottom and how complex the communication protocol is, considering project security and other factors, they often communicate with the cloud and converge on one device. The role of such devices is often associated with things. In addition to being responsible for communicating with the cloud, they sometimes process the original data and execute some code related to business logic. There are many optional protocols for cloud communication. The common ones are get or put methods based on HTTP protocol, which obtain some settings and status from the server, and push the collected data to the server. However, for a relatively large amount of data and high real-time requirements, direct socket tcp/udp communication is often used, so the transmission cost is relatively low, but the requirements for programming are relatively high

according to the above analysis, from the functional level, the device end architecture can generally be divided into three layers: the first is the data acquisition and control output layer; The second is the process execution layer; The third is the data upload command receiving communication layer

2. Cloud Architecture Design

cloud generally includes three parts: Web foreground + web background + middleware

as an industrial IOT project, the web foreground generally displays these parts. First, the process screen corresponds to the actual equipment and process flow on site, and the screen can reflect the operation of the industrial site in real time. The second is the storage, query and printing of various data reports and curve data. The third is the operation log, which saves various operation conditions for query. Fourth, display the system diagnosis information, so that when there is a problem in the system, we can judge the problem in time

the web background is relatively complex. It usually completes three parts of work. If the device communicates based on HTTP protocol, it often needs to process get and put requests. Because there are real-time pictures in the foreground, sometimes the web background also needs to transmit real-time data to the front interface. At present, some real-time data are transmitted through the web socket protocol, and can also be processed by special programs. Another part of the function is more important, which is to establish the corresponding relationship between equipment data and various reports, curves and logs, so as to be applicable to as many sites as possible

in industrial IOT projects, general middleware is essential. Its main function is to communicate with field equipment, obtain data or send relevant control instructions. In addition, there is another important function. Because the middleware program is generally used as a service program or ordinary application program of the system, it has a long life cycle, can run continuously for a long time, and can handle some relatively complex business logic, data conversion and data dump

3. Architecture design of the monitoring end

the monitoring end generally includes PC or tablet monitoring

for general projects, you may be able to control everything through the web foreground, but in the era of mobile Internet, if there is no corresponding app on the corresponding or tablet, then this project feels a great pity. With or tablet app, you can be anywhere and monitor the scene relatively conveniently

in terms of function, the architecture can be relatively simply divided into two layers, one is UI interface display and operation layer, and the other is data communication layer, which realizes information interaction with the server

4. Summary

if you put aside all other factors, only from a technical point of view, to achieve the functions of the above three major links, with what system platform, any development language can complete its scheduled functions. However, the so-called architecture design not only designs the whole system platform from the perspective of function, but also considers its reliability, scalability, maintainability and other aspects

as industrial IOT projects, most of them are oriented to specific industries such as industry, agriculture, animal husbandry and fishery. Although there are many similar parts in each industry from the technical point of view, they are very different from the process flow point of view. Therefore, it is necessary to adjust the code and expand the related functions and secondary development for specific projects. However, front-line engineers often have relatively low technical level and ability, so it is very important to quickly write reliable and robust code. After all, the implementation time of each project is limited, but at the same time, the project requirements are relatively high

another IOT project includes the development of embedded devices, the front and back ends of the web, the development of service programs, and the development of tablet programs, each of which is diverse from the technical platform, such as embedded devices, windows ce/xpe/Net micro framework, including embedded Linux/uClinux of Linux system, and real-time embedded operating systems such as uCOSII/FreeRTOS/mbed OS. Their development tools and system architectures are different and have their own characteristics. At present, there are at least three types of development on the peace Board, one is IOS development, the other is Android development and windows 10 uwp general program development, etc. In addition, there are more web development. Here are no more examples

therefore, if different technical routes are selected for each part in the overall architecture design, each technical route means that there must be a team to develop it, and after the development, it also needs to communicate from top to bottom, so as to organically connect the whole project

after the development, there is more maintenance work, not only the maintenance of the development team, but also the on-site maintenance. In addition to the problems, how to locate and solve them in time. In view of the above problems, coupled with years of on-site implementation and maintenance experience, I pay more attention to unified and configurable architecture design. Now I will talk about how we build IOT projects

architecture design of IOT general middleware platform

as it is a middleware development platform for IOT, the focus is not oneortwo project platforms with industry characteristics, but secondary development platforms for different industries and specific applications. More consideration is given to the general part of technology for cross industry applications and the function that the same runtime platform supports multiple project points

next, we will discuss the platforms for device side, cloud middleware and IOT respectively