Hey everyone, I'm beginning work on a new project which will potentially require hundreds of remote units to collect and report data back to a central server. By remote, I mean these will be solar-powered standalone units, whose only hope of reaching the internet is by satellite, are hours from civilization, and only accessible by 4-wheel drive vehicles via dirt roads.
This is a scenario that I'm familiar with, as I do industrial automation professionally, and a lot of my prior work has been in the oil and gas industry with hundreds of remote well sites. Typically, we would use industrial PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers) for this purpose, but they're quite expensive, very limited in terms of functionality, and designed to be general purpose automation controllers. Most PLCs allow you to program in the IEC 61131-3 languages ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_61131-3), which in themselves are clunky and limited, with a lot of controllers only allowing ladder logic. Most use the industrial standard communication protocol MODBUS, which is a simple 16-bit map of registers to values, and only supports basic data types. Some examples of what I'm referring to: http://www.schneider-electric.com/en/product-range/61247-scadapack-100--300--32/ http://ab.rockwellautomation.com/Programmable-Controllers/MicroLogix-Systems Long story short, I want something that's more flexible and powerful to use as a platform for this project. I'm familiar with PLCs and hobbyist level microcontrollers/embedded systems (Arduino, Raspberry Pi, etc.), but I'm looking for the area in between, which I would dub an industrial embedded Linux system. In my research on this, I've found a couple of promising-looking platforms, but I wanted to see if anybody had more insight into this area before I commit to one. Here's the controller I'm leaning toward at this point: https://www.embeddedarm.com/products/TS-7680 This one's in the ballpark, but not quite: http://www.advantech.com/products/gf-bvl2/uno-1252g/mod_ec6c2312-944e-4213-adde-dd4dc79d2432 Some characteristics that might define the type of platform I'm looking for: - Linux/*BSD - Temperature ratings suitable for an outdoor, enclosed, but non-temperature controlled environment - Low power consumption - Relay digital IO - 4-20 mA analog IO - RS-232 port - RS-485 port - Ethernet - Wifi - Watchdog timer Thanks for any feedback or insight. Matt /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
