IIoT Communication Gateways

New technologies bring new ways of interacting and controlling systems, but the need for a static HMI that is always ready and available will not go away. While cMT Series HMIs enable new and exciting features, the cMT Series also does not compromise on fulfilling this vital role.

The cMT Series uses EBPro, the next iteration of configuration software that Maple Systems customers use in our Advanced and Basic models. This software platform allows interface designers to select from over 300 protocol drivers and connect to nearly every PLC available in the automation market place today. With data from these devices, automation engineers can quickly construct state-of-the-art interface screens that present data to the operator in intuitive ways, so they’ll know exactly what’s going on within their machine. All of the standard display and data entry objects are available: buttons, meters, trends, alarms, and much more.

Once the project is designed, choose from one of our 4 Touchscreen cMT model sizes (7″, 9.7″, 10.1″, or 15″). These units can be mounted in a control panel like any traditional HMI. cMT Servers, which do not have a built-in display, can be paired with a cMT-iV6, a 9.7″ touchscreen display or a cMT-iM-21, a 21″ touchscreen monitor. Each can be a mounted in a traditional control panel. These screens provide a permanent fixed terminal that operators expect to find in any system. These screens provide a permanent fixed terminal that operators expect to find in any system.

A static, panel-mounted display is great for many applications but can be limiting in others.

For example, a machine may be quite large and the operators want to be able to stand directly in front of the section of the machine they are working on. Previously, the only way to accommodate this need would be to install a separate control panel at every point of interest along the assembly line. Or, a plant manager may want the ability to quickly log into any plant floor machine in order to respond to issues and monitor production rates. cMT Series HMIs allow you have it either or both ways.

Wireless Access to Remote Displays

The cMT Viewer application enables operators to use wireless Android, Apple, or Windows^® tablets as their HMI. They are untethered from the control panel. The operator can move freely to any part of the assembly line or processing plant, taking their HMI with them. This eliminates the need for running back and forth to the panel while troubleshooting, or tying up two operators; one at the control panel pushing buttons, and the other at the machine troubleshooting equipment.

The cMT Viewer application can also be run on any Windows^® PC – any computer on the same network as a cMT HMI can easily view and control the system. A plant manager can connect to any cMT HMI in their plant to get a real-time view of exactly what is occurring with that machine. The connection is password protected so only authorized users can have access. The Monitor Mode feature in cMT Viewer allows plant managers to view live data from up to 50 connected cMT devices simultaneously.

An alarm condition from any device would immediately alert the operator, enabling quicker response rates and resolution to the issue. The cMT Viewer application can run on a traditional Windows desktop or on panel PC to provide a supervisory control station with access to many subordinate machines.
Explore cMT Viewer.

The HMI view of an operator interface terminal, whether on a local display, mobile tablet, supervisory panel PC, or remote workstation, is only one view of the important data in an automation system. There are also; alarm and data logging, database integration, recipe management, protocol translation and more. cMT Series Products prove to be a flexible tool in these areas as well. Let’s tour a few features available to manage your data on the cMT products:

Modbus Gateway

In an ideal world, every machine vendor and systems integrator would use the same protocol and all equipment would seamlessly communicate with everything else on a plant floor. More often than not, this is far from the case. As a plant grows over time and different systems are added, little thought is given to the process as a whole. You’ll often find different systems, from different manufacturers, speaking different protocols, on different serial busses. Fortunately, cMT products speak many languages. cMT Series Products can use over 300 protocols on any of the available com ports, and translate them to the default industrial standard protocol: Modbus TCP/IP. The cMT device becomes a transparent protocol translator, allowing upstream SCADA systems to connect to PLCs as if they were all using the same protocol on the same bus.

Modbus Communication Gateway

Database Object Increasingly, data that machines produce needs to be recorded and preserved. The data may be useful in process improvement or may be required by regulatory agencies. The cMT products have an object which allows them to log a data sampling object or an alarm log directly to an SQL database server over an Ethernet LAN.

This eliminates the need for manually retrieving and entering log files from each machine independently. Data from many different sources can be aggregated and stored in one central safe and secure location, automatically.

Databases and Recipes Recipes are a collection of parameters stored in the HMI that can be transferred to a machine with one press of a button. Different parts may require different amounts of material, different cook times and temperatures, or different processing steps. This data often needs to be shared across multiple machines that may be at different steps in the process, or may be redundant production lines working on producing the same or similar products.

SQL databases can act as a storage tank for all machines sharing a particular recipe database. cMT HMIs can query the database for current recipe data before sending those parameters to the PLC. This way, changes only need to be made to this central database, instead of manually changed in each HMI.

This feature saves time in systems that have many machines sharing many recipes. The changes, additions, and deletions to the database only need to be made in one place and are then automatically updated throughout the system. This ensures production uniformity throughout the system. A single machine will not get stuck using an outdated recipe simply because someone forgot to update it.

So far we have seen how the cMT series of products work as a local display, a mobile HMI server, and a data manager within the factory. But the cMT series packs even more features that enable yet another level of access and control. The IIoT, or Industry 4.0, is a growing area of interest in the automation market. The cMT series provides a capable, ready, and secure solution for the IIoT.

Learn more about Maple Systems IIoT Solutions

OPC UA

Open Platform Communications (OPC) Unified Architecture (UA) is a tried and tested communication protocol supported by many SCADA, MES, and ERP software providers. The protocol has built-in security with signed and encrypted data transfer using state-of-the-art encryption algorithms. Data is organized into browsable objects, making it easy to both access data and quickly understand how to use what the data represents.

Any data accessible to the cMT can be added to the OPC UA server to be accessed by upstream devices. The configuration interface required to add data to the OPC UA server is very simple and straightforward to use. The user can organize data into multi-level objects with descriptive names. An OPC UA client device connecting to the cMT will see data organized in the same intuitive way.

Learn more about OPC UA

MQTT

MQTT is a powerful and efficient IoT protocol that is lightweight, highly scalable, and has excellent support on many client devices and programs. MQTT integrates well with Amazon AWS, IBM Bluemix, and Microsoft Azure cloud hosting services for next level data collection and processing.

The cMT Series Smart HMIs offer a full featured MQTT implementation. An easy to use configuration interface allows the user to select data from any of the supported PLC drivers, add it to an MQTT topic, and publish it periodically or whenever values change. The cMT Series can also subscribe to MQTT topics and write the received data to internal HMI memory or to PLC memory addresses. And as well, cMT Series HMIs can host an MQTT broker internally, coordinating connections from other Maple Systems HMIs or any other MQTT enabled device.

cMT HMIs offer advanced integration with Amazon AWS’s Device Shadow service which creates a virtual representation of the actual device in the cloud. And EBPro supports the Sparkplug B MQTT payload specification for integration with Ignition SCADA software and other Sparkplug B compatible software programs.

The MQTT protocol is data agnostic, meaning that any data can be sent through the protocol, including plain text messages. This raises security concerns since anyone with access to the network can view the data in transit. However, the MQTT feature on Maple Systems products includes the ability to encrypt messages from publisher to subscriber. This ensures that messages are only read by the people and programs authorized to receive the messages.

Learn more about MQTT