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What is SIMATIC IOT2020?

SIMATIC IOT2020, an open industrial IOT Gateway aims to support students, makers, and young developers to familiarize with the IIoT and scale up their prototypes developed with open source development boards like Arduino, Intel Galileo, and Raspberry PI.  IOT2020 is not a logic controller.  It aims to be the brain of every IoT application by collecting data, via its various communication ports, from PLCs, drives, and sensors located everywhere in the world. In any case students and makers can get onboard IO capabilities by using the Arduino connectors or using many of the existing Arduino shields.

 

What does it mean, SIMATIC IOT2020 is an “Industrial hardware”? What is the difference with the regular development boards such as Arduino?

UL and CE certification is only one of the many requirements that make IOT2020 suitable hardware for industrial applications. IOT2020 is developed with an industrial IP20 housing and with connection interfaces that allow it to be safely installed in machinery or in an electrical panel, and to be connected with other DIN rail industrial devices such as PLCs, power supplies, relays, and motor drives.

Moreover, IOT2020 is built with industrial grade components that allow it to operate 24/7 in an industrial environment with vibrations, dust, high temperatures, and electromagnetic interference.

Regarding communication protocols, IOT2020 can communicate with other industrial hardware by using secure industrial protocols such as Modbus, PROFINET, and MQTT.

The typical open source development boards are usually not developed for continuous operation in an industrial environment and are not designed to interface easily with other industrial devices.

Why do Students and Makers need an industrial grade and certified hardware?

An industrial grade and certified hardware is mandatory for the Students who want to intregate their IOT university projects into an existing industrial system (e.g. prototype a new remote monitoring system to control an existing industrial robot arm). Students can continue to start prototyping at the desk with the Arduino boards as usual; then move the code, and the Arduino shields if needed, into the IOT2020 when they want to start integrating the project into an automation/Electrical panel or industrial machinery.

The Makers can use IOT2020 to scale up their IoT projects to commercial applications by leveraging its industrial certifications and by simply migrating the vast majority of the code, already developed for the Arduino based baords during the prototyping phase, into it.

What are the main differences between the IOT2020 an the IOT2040

IOT2020:

  • Intel Quark® x1000
  • 512 MB RAM
  • 1 Ethernet interface
  • NO battery buffered RTC (but it can be added)

IOT2040:

  • Intel Quark® x1020 (+secure boot)
  • 1 GB RAM
  • 2 Ethernet interfaces
  • 2 x RS232/485 interfaces
  • Battery buffered RTC

 

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