Connecting brownfield plants for live data

In brief

Many long-established industrial plants still rely on machinery that was designed for durability rather than connectivity. As a result, operators often lack the real-time information needed to improve energy use, monitor equipment condition and optimize production processes. Conventional modernization methods can be expensive or problematic: installing physical cabling may cost significantly more than wireless alternatives, connecting additional sensors to existing SCADA systems can introduce cybersecurity risks, and internally developed IoT platforms frequently fail to progress beyond the pilot stage.

The article presents low-power wide-area network technologies, particularly LoRaWAN and mioty, as a practical way to connect these older “brownfield” assets. Wireless sensors can be added without replacing existing machinery or undertaking extensive cabling work, while a flexible IoT platform can collect the data and display it through operational dashboards. According to the article, this approach can allow manufacturers to retrofit equipment and begin receiving live data in less than a week.

Source: Control Engineering Europe

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