Advanced Wireless M-Bus Platform for Intensive Field Testing in Industry 4.0-Based Systems

Current forecasts predict that the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) will comprise about 10 billion devices by 2020. Because of its unique and novel demands, the emerging concepts of Industry 4.0 and SmartGrid networks have recently been coined and are now well established in the technical speech. In this work, we propose a newly developed multi-platform software tool aimed at testing the capabilities of Wireless MBus (WM-Bus) networks via simulating sensor-like behavior in uni-directional communication with a remote data concentrator. Building on our developed machine-type communication gateway (MTCG) able to receive WM-Bus data, we extend the set of features and introduce new machine-type communication device (MTCD) capable of emulating the corresponding data transmissions. As utility companies lack these features, our software implementation and hardware design open the door to initial verification of WM-Bus-based data transmissions for them without the need for investing into expensive development and certification of smart meters, where WM-Bus is utilized for data transmissions.