Open ecosystem for future industrial Internet of things (IIoT): Architecture and application

Advanced sensing, data analysis and communication techniques have led to the emergence and tremendous development of industrial internet of things (IIoT) in recent years, which raises revolution in condition monitoring and maintenance for electrical assets. An open ecosystem for future IIoT is proposed in this paper and the architecture of the open ecosystem is discussed. An open development environment needs to be established for users to interact with power devices and servers freely via web or mobile applications installed on user terminals, increasing IIoT scalability and flexibility. The core technologies of open ecosystem in future IIoT are discussed, which include comprehensive sensing techniques, wide-area communication tools, Big Data service infrastructure, data analysis algorithms and intelligent maintenance schemes. An application of future IIoT ecosystem in wind farm maintenance is then presented. It is demonstrated that the efficiency and effectiveness of wind farm maintenance can be improved with the support of open ecosystem of future IIoT, providing an innovative insight for electrical assets monitoring and maintenance with high reliability.