An IoT Middleware Framework for Industrial Applications

Abstract

Starting from the RFID and the wireless sensor networks, the Internet of connected things has attracted the attention of major IT companies and later, of the industrial environment that recognized the concept as one of their key axes for future growth and development. The implementation of IoT in the industrial environment raises some significant issues related to the diversity of fieldbuses, the large number of devices and their configuration. The requirements related to reliability, security and real-time are very important. This paper proposes an industrial IoT and communications at the edge framework which has some outstanding features related to: the easy integration of fieldbuses and devices used in industrial environments with automatic configuration features, integration of multiple middleware technologies (CORBA, OPC and DDS), the uncoupling of the industrial activity from the publishing data on the Internet, security at different levels of the framework. Another important feature of the proposed framework is that it is based on mature standards and on open source or public implementations of these standards. The framework is modular, allowing the easy integration of new fieldbus protocols, middleware technologies and new objects in the client application. This paper is focused mainly on CORBA and DDS approaches.