11 replies to this topic

[crafman]

Rather than opening a 6 month old post I thought I'd raise this question again to get a fresh view on things. First of all I must state that I'm a complete noob to the world of embedded software, MF and all that. So I'm quite uncomfortable the closer my butt gets too to the metal. I've only started investigating the use of a Netdruino device in an industrial environment. What I envisaged initially was putting the Netdruino in an enclosed industrial panel, taking some analog & digital inputs and sending staight to the cloud (either via GSM or the internal network). A few things to note: I don't want to use OPC (or OPC UA for that matter) as I would like to bypass the entire control system altogether. I do plan doing processing on the data before sending it on so it's more than just a data logger but I think I'm comfortable with the software side of things. I only need to send data so I presume that in the case of having to use an internal network that one could send it out over port 80 which wouldn't trouble a cranky network administrator. I'm obviously missing a lot of detail but could someone tell me in advance (before I dive head first) if this is all fundamentally feasible? I've read a few comments to posts where people have said that it's not really suitable for industrial use but no detail was supplied. Thanks

[nakchak]

Hi Crafman I would say it sounds feasible, obviously depends on your data processing requirements, however as you mentioned the magic word of cloud why not process the raw data there? The only draw back with the ND+ is SSL isn't really feasible, although i hope that when i get my hands on a ND!GO i shall be able to change that... I cant go into details yet (commercially sensitive) but i am currently developing (several months in) a system which does a similar thing posts raw data over port 80 to be processed and responded to by an ASP.NET MVC application which is cloud hosted, so far the biggest headache has been to do with some specific protocol requirements and typical server side issues (badly designed vendor DB etc.) So in a nutshell I would say yes very feasible have a go and have a lot of fun implementing

[Bainesbunch]

Hello, I am not doing anything on the net or with the cloud but I have developed a mission critical system to control camera dollies on a filming rig for use in live recording using the Netduino and the plus. They act as intermarries sampling data testing sensors and sending commands to the motor controllers. They relay this information back to a host PC doing all the data correlation and sending motor control commands back to the Netduino to pass on to the controllers. Everything is in closed loop so that any breakdown of communication caused the who system to go into emergency stop. I have had the system soak testing now for a continues period of 4 weeks without any issues. It will be going live in about 3 weeks and my confidence level is very high. Unfortunately the details of the system are protected by an NDA or I would be willing to share it here. In short I have no issues with using the Netduino in mission critical real time control situations. Hope this helps Cheers Pete.

[Mario Vernari]

Here are my considerations, in the full respect (I hope) with the other's opinions.
Basically you should clarify what is meant for "industrial system". In my mind, there's reliability, noisy environment, unbalanced grounds, humidity, dust, etc. However, you might think to the secretaries' office, where the Netduino is tightly connected to a PC, for instance.

The range of applications is very wide, as the conditions of usage: your board may works for years (as Pete says), or even hanging every minute.
Our systems have to be mission critical in many cases, but Netduino "as-is" is *far* from being reliable. Just to make you understand what's "mission critical" for me, think to:

• a radio-broadcaster plant on a mountain: if the system controller hangs or is not working properly, tens of thousands of people can't watch TV o listen to the radio.
• a several tons of wood in a dryer: if the system controller isn't reliable, gives bad measuring, or hangs, the whole wood gets garbage (e.g. colored or breaks), and many $$ are flying away.

Some limitation that *for me* are absolutely necessary for industrial targets:

• there's no watchdog;
• there's no any protection on the I/Os;
• there's no enough filtering on the power supply (against external spikes);
• there's no a dedicated Vref regulator (and the ADC is no so good);
• there are still some issue on the firmware and the MF itself (e.g. networking, SPI, serial, etc);
• there's no RTC (it's often useful).

Note: the Netduino board is *VERY* nice for prototyping, learning and something like that. It's also really interesting for small home-systems, whereas the reliability is not a deadly feature.

I am and I will be a strong supporter of Netduino, just because I love to dig into that board and discover limitations. However, IMHO, for making something serious you should design your own board, and checking step-by-step the firmware.
Hope it helps.
Cheers

EDIT: bear in mind that a Netduino is 50-100 US$. Mission critical hardware/software is much more expensive.

Edited by Mario Vernari, 24 April 2012 - 06:01 PM.

[crafman]

I would say it sounds feasible, obviously depends on your data processing requirements, however as you mentioned the magic word of cloud why not process the raw data there?

I preprocessing data for a few reasons but mainly to cut down on the data sent to the cloud. $$

The only draw back with the ND+ is SSL isn't really feasible, although i hope that when i get my hands on a ND!GO i shall be able to change that...

What's ND!GO?

[crafman]

Hello,

I am not doing anything on the net or with the cloud but I have developed a mission critical system to control camera dollies on a filming rig for use in live recording using the Netduino and the plus.



They act as intermarries sampling data testing sensors and sending commands to the motor controllers. They relay this information back to a host PC doing all the data correlation and sending motor control commands back to the Netduino to pass on to the controllers. Everything is in closed loop so that any breakdown of communication caused the who system to go into emergency stop.

I have had the system soak testing now for a continues period of 4 weeks without any issues. It will be going live in about 3 weeks and my confidence level is very high. Unfortunately the details of the system are protected by an NDA or I would be willing to share it here.

In short I have no issues with using the Netduino in mission critical real time control situations.

Hope this helps

Cheers Pete.

Thanks for sharing your experience Pete. Impressive use of the Netdruino. Just shows what's possible. Without giving away any details (as I understand your situation) did you have to customize the Netdruino to get the level of reliability up. A simple yes or no would suffice! Thanks

[crafman]

Hi Mario,

Basically you should clarify what is meant for "industrial system".

Yes I do indeed work in very 'busy' and quite often 'filthy' plants. That's a problem that has to be considered with each and every plant. I would presume that I could get an IP51 enclosure made up?

Our systems have to be mission critical in many cases, but Netduino "as-is" is *far* from being reliable. Just to make you understand what's "mission critical" for me, think to:

• a radio-broadcaster plant on a mountain: if the system controller hangs or is not working properly, tens of thousands of people can't watch TV o listen to the radio.
• a several tons of wood in a dryer: if the system controller isn't reliable, gives bad measuring, or hangs, the whole wood gets garbage (e.g. colored or breaks), and many $$ are flying away.

I would have the same view on the interpretation of 'mission critical'. To be of commercial benefit it simply has to work! But I also understand that industrial plants are harsh environments and are home to the most milicious gremlins. But you mentioned the word 'hang'!! I hadn't given any thought to the type of failures that can happen to the Netdruino. And more to the point what recovery scenarios are there. My use case is typically going to be 'Install and Go'.

However, IMHO, for making something serious you should design your own board, and checking step-by-step the firmware.

A bit beyond me Mario but I think I will enjoy getting my around the Netdruino first. Thanks for listing your hardware concerns.

[nakchak]

I preprocessing data for a few reasons but mainly to cut down on the data sent to the cloud. $




What's ND!GO?

ND!GO == Netduino GO the new board that was released at the start of the month

As for preprocessing it really depends how much data you are talking about as the ND doesnt have a huge amount of ram to play with (especially if you are coming from a desktop app developemnt background), initially i considered having a cloud "proxy server" running on the same lan as the ND+ nodes in my system to process the raw data coming from each ND+, pre processing it and then forwarding to the cloud based system, luckily it turns out for my system that 60% or so of the data sent by the protocol it uses is used for handshaking and other protocol related functions and has nothing to do with application data so i could just ignore 60% of the chatter and talk directly to the cloud.

Annother advantage of having a proxy/forwarder for your cloud comms is incase of a net outage, you can buffer all received data on the proxy and once connectivity is restored you can forwarded it on to your cloud based system, but it really depends on your application requirements what the best strategy will be for you.

[gbreder]

Hi, to stress Marios point a littel bit more I can tell my own story: One of my Netduino boards controls my heating. It receives all temperature data then processes it and after that controls all heating valves (they are in one place). The whole application is event driven and if I use the firmware 4.1.1beta it runs week after week. So far so good. But if I update to firmware to 4.2 RC3/RC4 the same application hangs without an exception after 6 to 12 hours. This is a little bit anoying. But the most anoying thing is that I can't reproduce the bug in a manner of: "I do something and the board gets stuck." Don't get me wrong: I think Netduino is by far one of the best Micro Framework boards out there but I would'nt do anyting mission critical with it too. Regards Guido

[crafman]

Thanks Guido, I think I'm getting a good picture of things now as they stand. It certainly sounds like there's great potential here for commercial projects and while I fully intend to get my paws dirty I don't think I'll be making any bold statements just yet. However it would be very beneficial to me and maybe to others to get a perspective, from Netduino themselves, about a roadmap for the future. Maybe there is one and I haven't seen it. For instance it would seem the Netduino Go was a reaction to community requests (more IO etc etc). But is there a greater plan??

[Chris Walker]

Hi crafman,

For instance it would seem the Netduino Go was a reaction to community requests (more IO etc etc). But is there a greater plan??

Netduino Go was created to enable users to customize Netduino's features. Instead of being limited to a pre-determined set and number of features, you can simply plug in whatever features you need. It's effectively our super-Netduino. As more and more modules come online this year, the hardware will become even more capable.

Netduino Go also happens to offer plug-and-play style components to enable an ecosystem of pre-built components...without the complication of pin assignment technologies like shields, Gadgeteer, etc.

We've designed Netduino and Netduino Go to create a continuum of code-compatible devices. Anywhere you jump into Netduino, your investment will enable you to use your skills and hardware into the future.

Chris

[Bainesbunch]

Thanks for sharing your experience Pete. Impressive use of the Netdruino. Just shows what's possible. Without giving away any details (as I understand your situation) did you have to customize the Netdruino to get the level of reliability up. A simple yes or no would suffice! Thanks

Yes. I basicly built it onto another PCB that took care of the nasty stuff that the outside world can though at it

Pete.