Retrofitting Industrial Machines with WebAssembly on the Edge

Abstract

Tapping into previously inaccessible data sources promises new potential for value creation in the manufacturing industry. However, asset-heavy shopfloors, long machine replace cycles, and equipment heterogeneity demand major investments to achieve smart manufacturing, which small businesses struggle with. Retrofitting is a sustainable means of equipping aged machines with low-cost sensors and microcontrollers to read and forward machine data. In this paper, we present a concept and a prototype to retrofit industrial scenarios using lightweight web technologies on the edge. We propose using WebAssembly as a new bytecode standard that runs on browsers and bare-metal hardware alike, thus providing a uniform development environment from cloud to edge. We confirm its applicability by achieving near-native performance together with modularity known from container-based service architectures. Our prototype is evaluated with a real industrial robot within a showcase factory, including measurements of data exchange with a state-of-the-art data lake setup. We are convinced that our groundwork paves the way to an easier-to-implement and more sustainable Industry 4.0.