IIoT Decentralized System Monitoring for Smart Industry Applications

Convergence of operation technology (OT) and information technology (IT) in industrial automation is currently being adopted as an accelerating trend. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) consists of heterogeneous sensing, computing and actuation nodes that are meshed through a layer of communication protocols, and represents a key enabler for this convergence. Experimental test beds are required to validate complex system designs in terms of scalability, latency, real-time operation and security. We use the open source Coaty - distributed industrial systems framework to present a smart industry application integrating field devices and controllers over the OPCUA and MQTT protocols. The experimental evaluation, using both proprietary automation components and open software modules, serves as a reference tool for building robust systems and provides practical insights for interoperability.