Cellular may be the solution to common Industrial IoT networking woes

Molex, one of the world’s largest connectivity solutions providers, recently conducted a survey about Industrial IoT (IIoT). A whopping 99 percent of respondents — engineers designing OEM solutions — identified networking challenges as their customers’ primary roadblock to IIoT implementation.

IoT networking in an industrial setting isn’t a trivial endeavor, but cellular connections can streamline the process.

Every company must take its network security seriously, which presents the first IIoT networking challenge. Every device added to a network represents a potential vulnerability. That is true of IoT devices in particular, which run embedded firmware and aren’t typically compatible with the security protocols and software that network engineers implement on company computers.

The purpose of an IoT device is to interface with the real world, which introduces a real danger. If the machinery on a factory floor connects to the internet through a network, then a bad actor with access could shut down operations, damage equipment or even injure personnel. Securing IoT devices adds a lot to network engineers’ workloads.

The second major challenge is making IoT data accessible and usable. Even if a device processes raw sensor data at the edge, it still needs to transmit information to other devices or a monitoring interface. The relevant data must be sent to some sort of central server for storage. Then a frontend interface needs to make the data available to the proper people. Remote control adds to this complexity.

These two broad challenges are enough to cause most companies hesitation. IIoT promises to improve efficiency and productivity, but the networking infrastructure is a major cost — both for the physical equipment and the network engineering labor cost.

TZERO’s cellular solution

TZERO, a company specializing in IIoT devices for the food and beverage industry, found that cellular is the ideal solution to networking challenges. The company created a sensor system that measures the specific gravity of beer in tanks during the brewing process. The specific gravity is an important data point that tells brewers if a batch’s alcohol by volume (ABV) is at the desired level.

Today, most microbreweries measure the specific gravity of a batch with a special device that resembles a barometer. It compares the beer’s density to that of water. TZERO developed an ultrasonic sensor that, along with temperature readings, provides the data necessary to calculate a batch’s specific gravity.

That sensor pops right into a tank and takes constant readings. But TZERO needed to address the networking challenges of its potential customers. Microbreweries do not often have the budget or networking expertise to install and secure complex networks for IIoT systems. TZERO needed a networking solution that was economical, secure and easy to implement.

The solution was cellular networking. Each sensor connects to a IoT device that handles some data processing on the edge and that contains a cellular modem. Data travels over the secure cellular connection to a cloud server. That data is then presented through an intuitive interface that brewers access through a smartphone.

Cellular provides tangible advantages here. It isolates the TZERO IoT systems from the rest of the network, which eliminates security and infrastructure challenges. There is no need to run Ethernet cables or distribute WiFi access points. Security is already addressed by the cellular provider, and there is no intermixing between the IoT networks and the rest of the brewery’s network.

Because data goes to the cloud via the cellular network, TZERO is able to handle all the data storage and processing needs behind the scenes. From the perspective of the brewery, the relevant data simply appears in the frontend interface. Because the system is plug-and-play, they don’t need any expertise in networking, backend programming or frontend programming.

Costs, limitations of cellular networking

Every decision-maker reading this will wonder about the cost. When every IoT device has its own cellular modem, or even if a few share a single gateway, the price tag can add up quickly in a large IIoT application. Compared to other networking solutions, cellular can be cost competitive.

Today’s cellular data plans can be quite reasonable and processing on the edge keeps bandwidth requirements low. The same is true of cloud servers — a cost necessary for most IoT networking solutions either way. The real cost comes down the investment in the hardware.

Cellular modems add to the cost of IoT devices, but that is still lower than the cost of implementing and maintaining more traditional networks. A few hours of a qualified network engineer’s time would exceed the cost of a substantial number of cellular modems for IoT devices. And network maintenance is an ongoing cost, while hardware is a single upfront cost.

Cellular was ideal for TZERO and would be a strong candidate in many IIoT scenarios, but not all of them. In some cases, cellular service isn’t available, such as when the IoT device must reside in a remote location. Cellular also isn’t suitable when transmitting a large amount of data, as is the case with a live video feed.

Many of the benefits of a cellular system also break down when a company must customize that system for a specific application. Cellular works well for TZERO because they designed their products to be plug-and-play. That is ideal when every installation is similar. But when a company must tailor their IIoT to highly specialized applications, other network solutions may be more logical.

Cellular isn’t a silver bullet that will solve the networking challenges of every IoT application, but it does offer benefits that every company should consider when weighing the choices in networking options for IIoT.