Bosch and HARTING have pooled their expertise to produce the first Plug&Play IoT-Kit for industrial applications with IP54 protection, available on the market. It quickly and easily allows digital condition monitoring for any type of machinery. Digital condition monitoring using physical measurements such as temperature and vibration is an efficient means of permanently monitoring and improving the system availability of machinery and plant. It enables changes in machine behaviour to be identified and the appropriate action taken. However, selecting, installing and integrating suitable components in existing infrastructure can sometimes be very costly, as production plants turn to trained IT specialists for support. The IoT starter kits previously available on the market are suitable for first prototyping but are not designed for long-term use in an industrial environment.
Field installation without need for cabinets
With the MICA CISS Industrial IoT-Kit, developed in cooperation with Bosch Connected Devices and Solutions and HARTING Technology Group, an IoT solution is now available which is operational within a day and supplies initial data immediately. The kit comprises a CISS (Connected Industrial Sensor Solution) multi-sensor unit by Bosch and the MICA Edge Computing System by HARTING.
Only a few steps are necessary to start the application. The small CISS sensor unit can be attached to any surface (IP54) and detects up to eight physical factors, including temperature, humidity, vibration, change of position, pressure, light, magnetic field and acoustics. The robust MICA mini-computer can also be installed alongside the machine (IP67) without the need for a control cabinet. MICA is connected to the sensor unit and the local network via industry standard connectors. Immediately after start up, the sensor data is provided in MQTT format and displayed in the web browser, via the integrated Node-RED dashboard. Data can be analysed and stored in any IT systems or IoT platforms and a connector for Microsoft Azure Cloud is already pre-installed. Local data storage is also possible as MICA can be supplemented with various database software to meet the specific requirements.
