Easy and Secure Handling of Sensors and Actuators as Cloud-Based Service

Abstract

The internet of things is rapidly becoming a fact of life. There remain, however, various challenges with respect to the concept of Industry 4.0 before this new reality is fully integrated into the industrial sector. One such challenge is ensuring security, an essential issue in terms of both management and operational technology involving the con guration and administration of physical equipment. Another is integrating equipment from different manufacturers which must be con gured and/or administered with incompatible protocols. Likewise, remote access to systems must be carried out from a browser in the web frame. This paper presents a set of tools, available as a cloud-based service, which facilitates access to the physical equipment located in a business. The access enables the end user to see and/or modify the con guration and management of data in a secure, controlled, organized and collaborative manner. In order to unify different protocols, the service makes use of the Modbus TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) protocol, one of the most commonly used by industry in local networks. The local Modbus communications are encapsulated in the Websocket protocol to make them accessible from the cloud. The tools proposed in this paper are based on open hardware platforms and free software, and they permit local and remote sensors and actuators to be fully and easily accessed. Hence, their chief advantage is that they allow access from any internet connection, via a browser, to the physical equipment located in an industry by means of user profiles in accordance with the security level set by each individual company.