MOXA – Connectivity for Automation Networks
Published on : Tuesday 03-08-2021
Moxa offers industrial-grade solutions backed by an excellent warranty and highly-specialised technical support for a diverse range of applications.
Critical connectivity in automation is not just about having a fast connection; it is about making people's lives better and more secure. For Taiwan-headquartered Moxa, a leader in edge connectivity, industrial computing, and network infrastructure solutions for enabling connectivity for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), the stated mission is keeping people and properties secure in hazardous environments by providing communication networks with maximum reliability.
With over 30 years of industry experience, Moxa has connected more than 71 million devices worldwide and has a wide distribution and service network to serve customers in more than 80 countries. Moxa offers industrial-grade solutions backed by an excellent warranty and highly-specialised technical support for a diverse range of applications, including connecting PLCs to a wireless control network, transmitting temperature signals over long distances, and automating device control and monitoring at remote locations.
Wide selection of products
Moxa offers a comprehensive selection of products to cover nearly any connection or networking requirement. These include:
Industrial Ethernet
Industrial Wireless
Industrial Computing
RTU & Remote I/O
IP Surveillance
Serial/USB/Fieldbus
All these products are designed to exact specifications. In addition to standard product offerings, Moxa’s expert R&D team can also deliver customised solutions for projects that have highly specialised requirements, including the development of specific technical functions or simple changes in connector type.
Unique challenges, tailored solutions
Moxa industry solutions are tailored to overcome the unique challenges facing specific demanding environments in various sectors. These include smart rail, smart grid, intelligent transportation, factory automation, oil and gas, marine, and more.
Manufacturing – Modern manufacturing is becoming even more efficient and productive thanks to the power of secure, reliable, and integrated industrial Ethernet networks.
Rail – Highly reliable onboard, trackside, and station-based train systems work together to make sure that trains will run on time while maximising safety and capacity.
Power – Moxa helps in making the world’s power grid more intelligent from end-to-end to distribute energy safely and efficiently in an increasingly energy-conscious world.
Oil & Gas – Critical oil and gas assets need the highest level of security, performance, and reliability from components operating in demanding conditions.
Marine – Moxa delivers the combination of high performance, reliability, and display quality that shipboard systems need in order to meet the rigors of marine operations.
Intelligent Transportation – Transportation is the lifeblood of any region, and the right convergence of real-time data creates intelligent transportation systems that are healthy and efficient.
OT and IT convergence – 3 critical steps
OT and IT convergence is necessary to transform data into useful information. However, the fundamental differences between OT and IT make convergence difficult. Whether an enterprise will overcome or fail the challenges of this convergence will depend on the choice of connectivity solutions for OT and IT.
Case study – Train-to-ground communication systems
One of the largest players within the railway industry needed to develop the rail communication network for a metro in India. In order to enhance passenger safety, the network needed to be able to support a state-of-the-art CCTV surveillance system that provides real-time monitoring from the control centre. The project requires a reliable train-to-ground wireless network that connects to rail-certified onboard wireless clients, trackside wireless units, and trackside Ethernet switches. The onboard wireless clients need to provide seamless roaming, wireless network redundancy, and sufficient bandwidth to ensure smooth video data transmission on constantly moving trains. For the trackside network, a redundant network topology is required to avoid packet loss when transmitting data from the trackside to the control centre.
System requirements
1. Wireless devices that can transmit video data at up to 12 Mbps
2. A fast roaming mechanism to ensure seamless transmission of video footage while trains are operating, and
3. A network redundancy mechanism for train to ground communications in order to support real-time monitoring from the control centre.
Moxa solution
To assist the company develop a reliable train-to-ground wireless network, Moxa provided a variety of rail-certified products that were deployed onboard and at the trackside. The AWK-4121 Series (since replaced with TAP-213), which was customised for this project, was used onboard as a wireless client to deliver video data seamlessly to the trackside by offering 12 Mbps throughput. This was complemented by WAC-2004 controllers that support 50 ms handoff times, which were located in the control centre. Moreover, the customised AWK-4121 Series wireless client features AeroLink Protection which ensures reliable wireless network failover connection times of less than 300 ms. The TAP-6226 (also replaced with TAP-213) wireless trackside units functioned as wireless APs to collect the video data onboard and a built-in fibre Ethernet switch was used to deliver the video data to the fibre network backbone. As the overall length of the metro line exceeds 25 km, the network backbone requires several switches with large bandwidth capabilities to ensure smooth data transmission. The IKS-G6524A layer 2 full Gigabit rackmount switches were deployed at the trackside and the ICS-G7828A layer 3 full Gigabit rackmount switches were utilised in the fibre network backbone to create the Turbo Chain topology. In addition, the rugged trackside wireless unit, TAP-6226, provided network redundancy by guaranteeing recovery times of less than 100 ms.
All of the products Moxa provided have rugged designs to withstand the harsh environments that are experienced onboard trains and at the trackside. Moxa products’ features include the ability to withstand strong vibrations, operating temperature ranges of up to -40 to 75°C, and waterproof designs that include products with the IP68-rating. A combination of unique network technology, rail-certified products, and sincere customer service allow Moxa to help its customers develop reliable CCTV communication systems that enhance passenger safety onboard trains.
Why Moxa?
a. Use of the IEEE 802.11a/b/g standard ensures 12 Mbps throughput
b. Controller-based Turbo Roaming technology for roaming handoff under 50 ms
c. Turbo Chain topology provides fast network recovery (under 100 ms) at the trackside
d. AeroLink Protection provides wireless network failover mechanism (under 300 ms) for train-to-ground network communications
e. IP68-rated products for outdoor applications
f. -40 to 75°C wide operating temperature range (T models)
g. TAP-6226 wireless units and AWK-4121 Series wireless clients comply with the relevant portions of the EN 50155 standard
h. EN 50121-4 compliant for IKS-G6524A and ICS-G7824A full Gigabit Ethernet switches.
For more information: https://www.moxa.com/en/