Implementation of Dual Internet Links for Industrial IoT to Provide Safe Digital Commands for Process Automations

Abstract

This paper aims to build an efficient, secure, and reliable Industrial-IoT system for regions with slow, unreliable Internet connections to maintain the minimum requirements for industrial processes and guarantee production sustainability. In this paper, a remote monitoring and control system is established practically using KEPServerEX. The communication between the client and the server is accomplished through the internet using Fiber to the Home (FTTH) architecture with a dedicated public IP address on the server side. At the same time, 3G mobile data and FTTH have been used on the Client side. Open Platform Communications United Architecture (OPC UA) transfers automation data between the client and the server through the internet. The hardware devices are connected to the server through Ethernet cables. A monitoring HMI is programmed and interfaced with the KEPServerEX on the client side, which is located far away from the server area. This paper introduces an innovative method to achieve dual-link connections between the OPC UA Server and the Remote OPC UA Client. A redundant Internet link is used in parallel with the other link to provide more reliability, availability, and security to the system. The designed system sends an alarm to the client in case of detecting link communication failure, link transmission delay, or malicious data injection into the system. The results show that the client can receive the alarm within a time delay between 200 to 300 ms.