Digital condition monitoring using physical measurements such as temperature and vibration is an efficient means of permanently monitoring and improving the system availability of machinery and plant. It enables changes in machine behaviour to be identified and the appropriate action taken. Selecting, installing and integrating suitable components in existing infrastructure can sometimes be very costly however. For this many production plants are directed to trained IT specialists for support. The IoT starter kits previously available on the market are suitable for first prototyping, but are not designed for long-term use in an industrial environment.

With the MICA^® CISS Industrial IoT Kit, developed in cooperation with Bosch Connected Devices and Solutions and HARTING Technology Group, an IoT solution is now available which is operational within a day and supplies initial data immediately. The kit comprises a CISS (Connected Industrial Sensor Solution) multi-sensor unit by Bosch and the MICA^® Edge Computing System by HARTING.

Only a few steps are necessary to start the application. The small CISS sensor unit can be attached to any surface (IP54) and detects up to eight physical factors including temperature, humidity, vibration, change of position, pressure, light, magnetic field and acoustics. The robust MICA^® mini-computer can also be installed right next to the machine (IP67). A control cabinet is not necessary. MICA^® is connected to the sensor unit and the local network via industry standard connectors. Immediately after startup, the sensor data is provided in MQTT format and displayed in the web browser via the integrated Node-RED dashboard. Data can basically be analysed and stored in any IT systems or IoT platforms. A connector for Microsoft Azure Cloud is already pre-installed. Local data storage is also possible: MICA^® can be supplemented with various database software for this purpose.

The MICA^® CISS Industrial IoT Kit will be on view for the first time at Hannover Trade Show from 23 to 27 April 2018 on the HARTING stand (Hall 11/C15) and is available to order from April at www.harting.com.