The IIoT devices to cloud gateway design and implementation based on microcontroller for real-time monitoring and control in automation systems

This papers presents a design and implementation technique to develop an IIoT gateway that works as Device-to-Cloud gateway. The gateway is specifically designed and implemented based on industrial automation systems. It is designed to support traditional sensors and actuators that operate on standard current and voltage values (4-20mA, 0-12V or 0-24V). Also it can communicate to Modbus devices using Modbus-RTU protocol. With these design features, the proposed system can be used in many industrial automation applications. To achieve the real-time ability of the system, the WebSocket protocol is implemented in both microcontroller (MCU) and Cloud system. The IIoT gateway is implemented on a 16-bit MCU. The MCU is preprogrammed with special firmware. The firmware is designed and implemented based on real-time multitasking and interrupt-driven to be sure it can serve all required tasks on time. To make the MCU can communicate to the Cloud system, the WiFi module that supports TCP/IP protocol is connected to the MCU. To fully evaluate and examine the proposed system, four channels of sensors, four channels of actuators, and six Modbus devices (Power meters) are used to construct an experimental system. There are three web-applications developed to examine the data communication between the IIoT gateway and the Cloud system. The experimental results show that the proposed IIoT gateway can exchange desired data to the Cloud system, back and forth as real-time data streaming.