The Need
Field data collection in a reliable and efficient way was always a challenge for industries, agriculture, remote infrastructure monitoring, smart cities, transport networks like railways etc. Our Customer, Indian Railways was looking for a reliable field data collection unit for its Remote Diagnosis & Predictive Maintenance (RDPMS) of field devices.
Impacts Delivered
- Designed a system with high reliability, performance and modularity.
- Design meets RDSO specifications
- Reduced stored/sent data using deadband and threshold detection
- The prototype production is complete and will be followed by CE, FCC, UL certification process
Our Solution
- Gadgeon designed and developed an FTU device using NXP’s LS1023 processor which runs Linux and with good processing power.
- We have built the required internal intelligence to collect data, process data, store &/ or send only the relevant data.
- Hardware, Mechanical, Firmware & Application design, development, bring-up and testing
- Backplane architecture with multiple PCB cards of up to 8 layer and interfaces like DDR4, PCIe, RGMII, USB, SDIO, SPI, UART, I2C etc.…
- Interfaces - Wi-Fi, 4G, Ethernet, USB, RS485, LoRa, SD Card
- Deadband & threshold detection to optimize data
- DIN Rail mountable metallic enclosure.
- The FTU is a backplane architecture design, where the backplane consists of PCIe slots.
- Among the PCIE slots, one 8X PCIe slot is provided for connecting the Processor card and four 4x PCIe slots are provided to insert different add-on cards like Analog Input Cards, Digital Input Cards or Custom Cards like Rail IoT BMS Card as per customer requirement.
- FTU firmware is designed using a modular architecture with separate modules for configuration, data acquisition, processing and data publishing functions.
- The data monitoring functions are handled by publishing the FTU states to the UI.
Tools & Technologies
- PROCESSOR CARD: - NXP’s LS1023 processor, 2xCPU 64-Bit ARM A53, 1.0GHz, 2GB DDR4 Memory, 8GB eMMC
- DIGITAL INPUT CARD: - 8 x Digital input channels per card, Inputs configurable to 0-24V or PFC Input
- ANALOG INPUT CARD: - 16 x Analog input channels per card, Inputs configurable to Analog Voltage (0-10V) or Analog Current (4-20mA)
- IoT BMS CARD: - 4 X PFC Inputs, Humidity & Temperature sensor, and 48V Battery voltage monitoring.
System Block Diagram
Firmware Architecture