Edge Device¶

Overview of the Edge Device provided by the aedifion GmbH.

Overview¶

The aedifion Edge Device is an industrial PC enabling data connection between local devices as well as local data sources and the aedifion.io cloud platform. It supports most IP-based industry bus communication standards and is able to automatically ingest data from your plant, building or district using auto-discovery of all available datapoints and devices for easy set-up.

The Edge Device operation is fully plug-and-play from the customer perspective. Once connected to the internet, the Edge Device registers with the aedifion.io platform and aedifion staff carries out all necessary configuration remotely.

Figure 1: aedifion's Edge Device

Hardware¶

All aedifion Edge Devices are small industrial PCs that are hardened against splash water, extreme temperatures, vibrations, and shocks. They can be mounted on standard DIN rails and have been designed, assembled, and approved according to German standards.

We use the following hardware as the basis for our Edge Devices:

• OnLogic CL210

Security¶

Connecting your building to the cloud - through our Edge Device or any other means - is the basis for providing many value-added services. Securing this connection and protecting the exchanged data is crucial. For this reason, the Edge Device and its software have been built with security and data protection as first-class design principles.

Learn more? Check our dedicated security section on how we approach IT security and take a look at the Edge Device subpage for admins.

Edge Computing¶

All aedifion Edge Devices are equipped with multiple cores, a generous amount of RAM and plenty of fast SSD disk space. With these powerful resources, Edge Devices can run advanced edge computing use cases that go well beyond simple data collection, e.g.,:

• Edge controls: The Edge Device can run control algorithms locally. Running locally achieves sub-millisecond frequencies and can even provide real-time guarantees Futhermore, local algorithms can serve as dependable fallbacks when cloud-control fails, e.g., due to intermittent connectivity.
• Data processing: The Edge Device buffers all collected data locally for several weeks and can thus handle even very long connection losses without losing data. Using the local buffer, the Edge Device can also serve as a local database in order to provide collected data to other consumers in the local network. When connecting the Edge Device to the platform, e.g., through LTE, the Edge Device can pre-process and compress collected data to reduce network overheads.
• Over the air updates: The Edge Device can be used as a gateway to ship firmware updates to devices on the automation network.

Integrations¶

The aedifion Edge Device can communicate with a variety of third-party systems via standardized protocols and APIs. These are integrated as plugins which are divided into four categories:

• Loggers collect measurement and meta data from a data source, e.g., sensor readings from the building automation network.
• Publishers send data collected by loggers to a data sink, e.g., to an MQTT broker or database.
• Subscribers wait for commands from another controller, e.g., to write a setpoint for a room temperature.
• Writers act on received commands and execute them on the target system, e.g., write a setpoint on a BACnet device.

Figure 1: Plugin architecture of the Edge Device

The following integrations are available:

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