A Software Architecture for the Industrial Internet of Things—A Conceptual Model

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging concept that has revolutionized the use of new technologies in everyday life. The economic impact of IoT becoming very important, and it began to be used in the industrial environment under the name of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) concept, which is a sub-domain of IoT. The IIoT changes the way industrial processes are controlled and monitored, increasing operating efficiency. This article proposes a software architecture for IIoT that has a low degree of abstraction compared to the reference architectures presented in the literature. The architecture is organized on four-layer and it integrates the latest concepts related to fog and edge computing. These concepts are activated through the use of fog/edge/gateway nodes, where the processing of data acquired from things is performed and it is the place where things interact with each other in the virtual environment. The main contributions of this paper are the proposal and description of a complete IIoT software architecture, the use of a unified address space, and the use of the computing platform based on SoC (System on Chip) with specialized co-processors in order to be able to execute in real-time certain time-critical operations specific to the industrial environment.

Searchable Encryption with Access Control in Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)

“…Privacy in IIoT systems is challenging as these systems usually store and process data in thirdparty cloud services. [26]. However, massive data need time to be transferred directly to the cloud for processing, which adds computation overhead.…”

Model-Driven Approach for Realization of Data Collection Architectures for Cyber-Physical Systems of Systems to Lower Manual Implementation Efforts

“…Dotoli et al [ 10 ] conclude that suitable I4.0 technologies for the integration of CPSoS are already available, but significant implementation efforts limit industrial applicability. This can be explained by the significant heterogeneity of existing legacy systems, incompatible communication protocols and interfaces, as well as the large number of different I4.0 technologies currently available [ 11 ].…”

“…Numerous communication protocols and architecture styles are available for IIoT connectivity and system integration [ 11 ]. These protocols stem from different domains and have their very own characteristics: while, on the shop floor, OPC UA (OPC Unified Architecture) is propagated as the new de-facto standard for machine connectivity, the Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol is predominant in the domain of cheap IIoT sensors.…”

Component-Based Microservices for Flexible and Scalable Automation of Industrial Bioprocesses

“…Many works on software architectures have drawn attention to the design and implementation of an ICPS. [2] A software architecture for an industrial internet of things (IIoT) composed of 4 layers (sensing/THINGS layer, data provider layer, fog/edge computing layer, and applications/services layer) was proposed. It was a conceptual model with a low level of abstraction, oriented to the design and development of real-time applications for the IIoT.…”

“…Cyber-physical systems (CPS) are used whenever a complex physical system needs to communicate with the digital world to optimize its performance and improve its efficiency. An industrial cyberphysical system (ICPS) is a collection of computational (cyber) and physical components that interact with each other to achieve a particular application (process) objective at the desired time [1], and one of its main features is the interaction between a cyber component (a controller) and physical component (a plant), computationally coordinated and in communication with sensors and actuators [2], [3].…”