Free Your Manufacturing Data with Apache PLC4X & MQTT

Copyright © by HiveMQ. All Rights Reserved.
WELCOME
Christofer Dutz Florian Raschbichler
● Senior Software Engineer
at Mapped
● Member of Apache
Software Foundation
● Committer in 13 Apache
Projects
● VP Apache PLC4X Project
linkedin.com/in/christofer-dutz linkedin.com/in/fraschbi/
● Head of Support at
HiveMQ
● 7 years of MQTT
experience
● Blogger & Speaker
● Helped 130+ customers
to go into production with
IoT use cases

Current Situation

● Most important components: PLCs
○ Little Computers that run machinery
○ Very limited resources (CPU & Memory)
○ Up to Real-Time operation
○ Actually never crash
● Currently the industry is all about industry 4.0
● industry 4.0 is all about AI & Machine Learning
● AI & Machine Learning is all about data
○ It’s actually about lots of data
● Data is everywhere
● Accessing Data is easy (on new PLCs)
○ Using OPC UA or MQTT
Current Situation in Manufacturing/Automation

What is OPC UA?

Introducing OPC UA
● OPC Unified Architecture
● Standard & Protocol for
○ Platform independent data
exchange
○ Service-Oriented architecture
● Also defines the semantics of data
● Created by the OPC Foundation
● Development time: about 10 years
● Sort of final version released 2 years ago

Problems with OPC UA?
● A highly complex standard
● Incompatible Asset Administration Shells
● Need to add application-server to PLC
● Great for accessing small amounts of
data (for Dashboards, Logging, etc.)
● Inacceptable performance when
accessing large amounts of data -
especially at high frequencies (for AI &
Machine learning)

What is MQTT?

Introducing MQTT
● IoT messaging protocol
● Publish/subscribe
● Minimal overhead for client and
bandwidth
● Lightweight client implementations
● Designed for reliable communications
over unreliable channels
● 3 Quality of Service (QoS) levels
● MQTT 5 is required for IIoT

Publish / Subscribe Pattern

MQTT Pub/Sub Advantages
• Push Communication
• Message ﬁltering based on subjects topics
• Synchronization Decoupling
• Time Decoupling
• Space Decoupling
• Dynamic Topics

So why not just concentrate on MQTT?
● Industrial Hardware usually built for
lifespans of 20 years
● MQTT enabled PLCs available for 1-2
years
● Assuming that every PLC built into
machinery in the last 2 years supports
MQTT:
○ 5% of machinery replaced per year
○ -> Max. 10% availability
● What to do with the remaining >90%?

MQTT Open Standard - Freedom¹
● Free and open ISO standard
● OASIS standard
● Technical committee of users
● Periodic improvements

● Accessing data on PLCs older than 1-2 years is
difficult
○ Hundreds (if not even thousands) of protocols
○ Incompatibilities between manufacturers
○ Most have absolutely no security
○ Those with security features mostly
implemented in a useless fashion
● Especially when using OPC UA mostly performance
is unacceptable for:
○ Lots of data
○ In high frequencies
Current Situation in Manufacturing/Automation

● Usage of integration platforms
○ Extremely expensive
○ Usually Monoliths -> Don’t scale well
● Usage of commercial or open-source drivers
○ Commercial usually == Expensive
○ Open-Source mostly:
■ Very old projects
■ Badly maintained
■ Bady licensed
● Usage of (hardware) gateways
○ Gateway PLCs
○ Protocol Adapters/Gateways
Current Solutions

Introducing Apache PLC4X

Apache PLC4X Open Source - Freedom²
“PLC4X is a set of libraries for communicating
with industrial programmable logic controllers
(PLCs) using a variety of protocols but with a
shared API”

Supported Operations:
● Read ✓
● Write ✓
● Subscribe ✓
○ On value change
○ Cyclic
○ Events
● Browse ✗
● Execute ✗
Apache PLC4X Implementation

Supported Protocols:
● Siemens S7 ✓
● Beckhoff ADS ✓
● Modbus ✓
● EtherNet/IP ✓
● OPC-UA ✓
● Firmata ✓
● KnxNet/IP ✓
● CAN ✓
Apache PLC4X Implementation - Freedom³
● Allen-Bradley AB-ETH ✗
● Allen-Bradley DF1 ✗
● BacNet ✗
● Emerson DeltaV ✗
● Luxtronic ✗
● Siemens S7 (TIA) ✗
● ProfiNet ✗
● …

Supported Languages:
● Java ✓
● Go ✓
● C ✗
● Python ✗
● C# ✗
● C++ ✗
● ...
Apache PLC4X Implementation - Freedom³

● One API for all drivers
● One software can handle any type of machinery
○ Different Vendors in different Plants
○ Upgrading / Replacing machinery
● No need to retrofit existing machinery
● No license costs
● Passive-Mode drivers
Apache PLC4X USPs - Freedom⁴

Apache PLC4X Passive - Mode Drivers
● Secure by design
● Only listen to network traffic
● Make data in production network available 100% secure
● No need to validate/certify drivers
● Support subscription API

Apache PLC4X Passive-Mode Drivers
● Wiesemann & Theis GmbH built “Data-Diode”
● Explicitly built for usage with Apache PLC4X passive-mode drivers
● Product name: Fix Deﬁned Firewall
● https://www.wut.de/e-55312-ww-dade-000.php

Apache PLC4X Commercial Support
● https://industrial-opensource.com
● 14 Businesses around Apache PLC4X and other Apache IoT project
● Formed alliance for providing support for IoT Open-Source projects
● Services:
○ Trainings & Workshops
○ Consulting Services
○ Implementation (assistance)
○ Technical Support
○ Legal Consulting

Tit
MQTT for the new and upcoming devices
Apache PLC4X for all the existing & old
Machines
Perfect Match

Demo Time

Data-Diode

Demo Setup

Demo Client
• Go to:
http://www.hivemq.com/demos/websocket-client/
• connect to Host: broker.hivemq.com with Port: 8000
• Subscribe to topic plc4x/sorting-line-topic

Questions?

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Free Your Manufacturing Data with Apache PLC4X & MQTT

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