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Industrial Internet of Things in the Industry 4.0: New Researches, Applications and Challenges (Volume II)

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Internet of Things".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 April 2024 | Viewed by 4946

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Full Professor, Department of Computer Engineering, University of Catania, Catania, Italy
Interests: smart grid; industrial informatic
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
Associate Professor, Center of Mathematics, Computing and Cognition (CMCC), Universidade Federal do ABC (UFABC), Santo André, Brazil
Interests: computing; engineering; energy; manufacturing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the last few years a lot of effort is being put in the context of Industry 4.0 and in particular in Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). The application of the concepts of Internet of Things in an industrial environment opens a lot of different new application like Smart Factory, Smart Logistics, Smart Lifecycle, among others. The application of smart sensors, for instance, eases the digitalization process demanded by Industry 4.0 providing access to the information and configuration of field devices. Reference Architectures has been defined in this context, like Reference Architecture Model for Industrie 4.0 (RAMI 4.0) or Industrial Internet Reference Architecture (IIRA). In particular, the Asset Administration Shell (AAS) has been proposed in RAMI 4.0 to realize the concept of Digital Twin coming from Internet of Things to represent every asset, and its functionality, in the digital world. The digitalization process of Industry 4.0 and IIoT brings a lot of new scenarios and technologies that can be applied in the manufacturing process like Plug-and-Produce, Condition Monitoring and Predictive Maintenance, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, Fog and Edge Computing, Interoperability and Integration protocols, and so on.

The main objective of this special issue is to collect state-of-the-art contributions on the latest research and development, up-to-date issues, and challenges in IIoT. We invite researchers from academia and industry to submit their high-quality works and research findings. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Emerging sensors in IIoT
  • IIoT for industrial Condition Monitoring and Predictive Maintenance
  • Intelligent robots based- IIoT for industrial applications
  • Human machine interface in IIoT for industrial applications
  • Smart manufacturing using IIoT
  • Advances in reference architectures for Industry 4.0 and IIoT
  • Plug-and-Produce, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, Fog and Edge Computing in Industry 4.0
  • Interoperability and Integration in IIoT and Industry 4.0
  • New applications of IIoT in industry
  • Machine-to-machine communication protocol (OneM2M, OPC UA, DDS, etc.)
  • Novel Information models, standards mapping and software development techniques for IIoT
  • Novel network technologies applied for IIoT (TSN, 5G, SDN etc.)
  • Network management and industrial communication protocol
  • Digital Twin, Device Models, Automation Models
  • Novel applications of service-oriented architectures in IIoT (e.g., Microservices, REST, Serverless computing)
  • Application of Blockchain Technology in the Manufacturing Industry
  • Algorithms for remote IIoT data collection and filtering.

Prof. Dr. Salvatore Cavalieri
Dr. Nunzio Marco Torrisi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 1875 KiB  
Article
Industrial Internet of Things Gateway with OPC UA Based on Sitara AM335X with ModbusE Acquisition Cycle Performance Analysis
by Cornel Ventuneac and Vasile Gheorghita Gaitan
Sensors 2024, 24(7), 2072; https://doi.org/10.3390/s24072072 - 24 Mar 2024
Viewed by 392
Abstract
This article presents the hardware and software architectures used to implement the Modbus Extension (ModbusE) IIoT gateway, the performance of the acquisition cycle at the PRU real-time programmable core level, the acquisition cycle communication flow—dispatcher—OPC UA server (Linux)—OPC UA client (Windows) as well [...] Read more.
This article presents the hardware and software architectures used to implement the Modbus Extension (ModbusE) IIoT gateway, the performance of the acquisition cycle at the PRU real-time programmable core level, the acquisition cycle communication flow—dispatcher—OPC UA server (Linux)—OPC UA client (Windows) as well as the performance analysis of data communications between the IIoT ModbusE gateway and the OPC UA client (Windows). In order to be able to implement both the ModbusE acquisition cycle and the OPC UA server, the BeagleBone Black Board was chosen as the hardware platform. This board uses the Sitara AM335x processor (Texas Instruments (TI), Dallas, TX, USA) from Texas Instruments. Thus, the acquisition cycle was implemented on the PRU0 real-time core, and the OPC UA server, running under the Linux operating system, was implemented on the ARM Cortex A8 processor. From the analysis of the communication speed of the messages between the OPC UA client and the ModbusE servers, it was found that the ModbusE acquisition cycle speed was higher than the acquisition speed of the OPC UA client. Full article
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27 pages, 5359 KiB  
Article
Digital Twin of a Water Supply System Using the Asset Administration Shell
by Salvatore Cavalieri and Salvatore Gambadoro
Sensors 2024, 24(5), 1360; https://doi.org/10.3390/s24051360 - 20 Feb 2024
Viewed by 629
Abstract
The concept of digital twins is one of the fundamental pillars of Industry 4.0. Digital twin allows the realization of a virtual model of a real system, enhancing the relevant performance (e.g., in terms of production rate, risk prevention, energy saving, and maintenance [...] Read more.
The concept of digital twins is one of the fundamental pillars of Industry 4.0. Digital twin allows the realization of a virtual model of a real system, enhancing the relevant performance (e.g., in terms of production rate, risk prevention, energy saving, and maintenance operation). Current literature presents many contributions pointing out the advantages that may be achieved by the definition of a digital twin of a water supply system. The Reference Architecture Model for Industry 4.0 introduces the concept of the Asset Administration Shell for the digital representation of components within the Industry 4.0 ecosystem. Several proposals are currently available in the literature considering the Asset Administration Shell for the realization of a digital twin of real systems. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, at the moment, the adoption of Asset Administration Shell for the digital representation of a water supply system is not present in the current literature. For this reason, the aim of this paper is to present a methodological approach for developing a digital twin of a water supply system using the Asset Administration Shell metamodel. The paper will describe the approach proposed by the author and the relevant model based on Asset Administration Shell, pointing out that its implementation is freely available on the GitHub platform. Full article
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23 pages, 17341 KiB  
Article
Industrial Internet of Things over 5G: A Practical Implementation
by José Meira, Gonçalo Matos, André Perdigão, José Cação, Carlos Resende, Waldir Moreira, Mário Antunes, José Quevedo, Ruben Moutinho, João Oliveira, Pedro Rendeiro, Pedro Oliveira, Antonio Oliveira-Jr, José Santos and Rui L. Aguiar
Sensors 2023, 23(11), 5199; https://doi.org/10.3390/s23115199 - 30 May 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3510
Abstract
The next generation of mobile broadband communication, 5G, is seen as a driver for the industrial Internet of things (IIoT). The expected 5G-increased performance spanning across different indicators, flexibility to tailor the network to the needs of specific use cases, and the inherent [...] Read more.
The next generation of mobile broadband communication, 5G, is seen as a driver for the industrial Internet of things (IIoT). The expected 5G-increased performance spanning across different indicators, flexibility to tailor the network to the needs of specific use cases, and the inherent security that offers guarantees both in terms of performance and data isolation have triggered the emergence of the concept of public network integrated non-public network (PNI-NPN) 5G networks. These networks might be a flexible alternative for the well-known (albeit mostly proprietary) Ethernet wired connections and protocols commonly used in the industry setting. With that in mind, this paper presents a practical implementation of IIoT over 5G composed of different infrastructure and application components. From the infrastructure perspective, the implementation includes a 5G Internet of things (IoT) end device that collects sensing data from shop floor assets and the surrounding environment and makes these data available over an industrial 5G Network. Application-wise, the implementation includes an intelligent assistant that consumes such data to generate valuable insights that allow for the sustainable operation of assets. These components have been tested and validated in a real shop floor environment at Bosch Termotecnologia (Bosch TT). Results show the potential of 5G as an enhancer of IIoT towards smarter, more sustainable, green, and environmentally friendly factories. Full article
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