Framework for centralized technical management systems

• Autor(a) principal: Pinto, Francisco Bártolo Ribeiro
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10773/32282
• topic: Centralized technical management; Internet of things; EdgeX Fondry; Communication protocols; OpenFlow; Software-defined networking

Centralized Technical Management (CTM) Systems allow the control and monitoring of various devices installed on the factory floor or in other environments, such as offices, buildings, or hospitals. These devices can capture data about the medium (sensors) or interact with the same medium (actuators). Temperature sensors, presence detectors, or energy meters can be used to control HVAC systems, lighting, or even trigger an alarm in an emergency. With the increasing Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications, it becomes necessary to use effective CTM systems. With these systems, a technician can manage multiple devices in a centralized unit without having to be in direct contact with the device and possibly without having to travel to the building where the instruments are. There are several setbacks when designing a GTC system. One of them is that the devices to be controlled use different protocols to communicate with each other. With this in mind, within the scope of this work, we developed a framework for developing CTM systems. This framework allows all devices connected to the central unit to be controlled through a graphical interface in the same way. That is, the system creates a layer that abstracts the communication protocol used by the various devices. In this work, tools such as EdgeX Foundry, InfluxDB, Telegraf, and Grafana were used to implement a framework. The functioning of the framework was validated using commercial devices (KNX and Modbus protocols) and a device developed from scratch (MQTT protocol). Additionally, a mechanism for prioritizing messages considered critical, which uses an IP protocol, was implemented. This mechanism allows a specific bandwidth to be reserved for the desired protocol. To this end, Software-Defined Network and OpenFlow principles were used to implement a mechanism that prioritizes MQTT packages. Two setups were compared to test the implemented system, with and without the message prioritization mechanism.