Understanding IoT Gateways in Three Minutes

The collection, transmission, and monitoring of device data are key steps in the entire process. With the continuous updates in market demand and technological advancements, IoT intelligent gateways have emerged. To better understand their value and the circumstances of their emergence, we must discuss the development process of data collection, transmission, and monitoring from devices.

In the early stages of development, when the awareness of data collection was just emerging, due to the lack of sensors and the backwardness of transmission technology, most data measurement relied on manual efforts. The drawbacks of manual measurement are obvious; it is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and the detection range is very narrow, so this method was quickly eliminated.

1. Initial Local Monitoring, the First Attempt at Data Collection

True data monitoring should start with local monitoring. By connecting the main control device and PLC or HMI through a wired network, local human-machine interaction and information exchange can be performed, with data from the device directly displayed on a PC or HMI.

The PC needs to be installed close to the device, and personnel are required to monitor and provide feedback 24 hours a day. At this time, human effort still dominates, and the practical significance of local monitoring is minimal, merely staying at simple data statistics.

2. The Emergence of Ethernet, Extending Physical Transmission Distance

Due to the limitations of local monitoring, people began to apply wired broadband technologies such as Ethernet to data collection and transmission, which extended the range of data transmission. When device nodes are connected to sensors, the data can be transmitted through certain conversions to Ethernet and then to the terminal display. In terms of transmission range, there has been some expansion based on the original range.

However, the differences in protocol standards in between led to communication not being smooth, and the inherent limitations of wired networks meant that remote monitoring was not possible, which once again created a huge demand in the data market.

3. The Emergence of Gateways, Adapting to More Protocol Standards

With the emergence of 2G/3G/4G networks, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and other wireless transmission technologies, the problem of remote data transmission has seen a breakthrough, but the multiple protocol standards hindered the “dialogue” between devices. At this time, the emergence of gateways was very timely to adapt to more protocol standards. In communication protocols and data, gateways act as translators; unlike bridges that simply relay information, gateways must repackage the information received to meet system requirements.

The conversion capability of gateways, combined with wireless communication protocol technology, greatly extends the reach of the IoT. However, IoT technology also faces unique challenges. One challenge is that many IoT nodes cannot directly connect to IP-based networks due to limitations in system memory, data storage capacity, and computing power, making it difficult to achieve universal connectivity. IoT gateways can fill this gap by establishing a network bridge between IP-based public networks and local IoT networks, using different communication protocols, data formats, or languages, and even architectures that are completely different.

In layman’s terms, with gateways, the so-called M2M is no longer limited to machine-to-machine dialogue, but rather seamless communication between devices, systems, and people.

4. Modern IoT Intelligent Gateways, Driving Predictive Maintenance of Devices

Modern IoT intelligent gateways play a very important role in the IoT era; they are not only the link connecting sensing networks and traditional communication networks. As gateway devices, IoT intelligent gateways can achieve protocol conversion between sensing networks and communication networks, as well as between different types of sensing networks, enabling both wide-area and local interconnection. Additionally, IoT intelligent gateways need to have device management functions, allowing operators to manage the underlying sensing nodes, understand the relevant information of each node, and achieve remote control. Their unique edge computing capabilities allow traditional factories to achieve faster and more accurate data collection and transmission during the digital transformation process.

Characteristics of IoT Intelligent Gateways

Support for remote updates and maintenance. For example, Ruff’s IoT intelligent gateways can add supported protocols based on software upgrades at any time, providing a JS-based development interface. Users only need to download the corresponding configuration application to modify the functionality of the hardware products. If issues arise during gateway use, there is no need to go on-site for repairs; modifications can be made at the software level using the Ruff Explorer remote management tool, allowing for early detection and resolution of issues, making maintenance smarter and ensuring more stable and reliable device operation.

Ruff serves agricultural customers

Ruff Explorer remote management tool

Secondly, modern IoT intelligent gateways also have strong compatibility. They adopt a plug-and-play design concept, compatible with devices and protocols from mainstream manufacturers, providing protocol downloads and secondary development interfaces to make compatibility easier. Since the control of hardware gateways is done at the software level, factories do not need to incur high costs to replace compatible gateway devices; simple modifications at the software level are sufficient.

Currently, some domestic companies, such as Huawei and Ruff, produce edge computing gateways and IoT intelligent gateways that have been successfully implemented multiple times in real production environments. They help customers quickly and efficiently connect devices, collect and transmit data, and provide edge intelligent services through their own edge computing capabilities, meeting the critical needs of industry digitization in agile connectivity, real-time business, data optimization, application intelligence, and security and privacy protection. The reduction of labor costs, equipment maintenance costs, and time costs is highly valuable, and this will be one of the core competitive advantages for many small and medium-sized factories in the Industrial 4.0 transformation battle.

Of course, the technical capabilities of gateways have not yet reached their endpoint. As market demands continue to rise and IoT technology continues to advance, it is believed that more comprehensive IoT gateways will continually emerge, providing better services for the future development of IoT.

Now that you know what a gateway is, you may wonder what the benefits are of taking additional steps between sensors/devices and the cloud.

Battery Life

If sensors/devices are located in remote areas, they may need a remote connection, such as satellite connectivity, to communicate with the cloud. As mentioned here, longer ranges typically mean increased power consumption (and costs); this can be a problem for small sensors/devices with limited battery life.

If sensors can last for years instead of months or weeks, by using an elevated gateway installed near the periphery or top of a barn, the sensors/devices only need to send data over a short distance to the gateway, which can then relay the data back to the cloud via a single higher bandwidth connection.

The gateway allows sensors/devices to communicate over shorter distances, thereby improving battery life.

Conversion of Different Protocols

A complete IoT application may involve many different types of sensors and devices. Again, using smart agriculture as an example, you may need temperature, humidity, and sunlight sensors, as well as devices for automatic irrigation and fertilization systems.

All these different sensors and devices may use different transmission protocols (essentially the rules and formats for transmitting information). Protocols include LPWAN, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, and more.

The gateway can communicate with sensors/devices using different protocols and then convert that data to a standard protocol (such as MQTT) for sending to the cloud.

Unfiltered Data

Sometimes, sensors/devices can generate so much data that it overwhelms the system or incurs extremely high transmission and storage costs. Often, only a small portion of the data is actually valuable. For example, security cameras do not need to send video data of empty hallways.

The gateway can preprocess and filter the data generated by sensors/devices to reduce transmission, processing, and storage requirements.

High Latency

Time can be critical for certain IoT applications; sensors/devices cannot transmit data to the cloud and wait for a response before taking action. This is true for life-or-death situations in the medical field or for fast-moving objects like vehicles.

By processing data on the gateway and issuing commands locally, higher latency can be avoided. However, many sensors/devices in IoT applications are too small and have too low battery life to perform processing.

The gateway can reduce latency for time-critical applications by performing processing on the gateway itself rather than in the cloud.

Security

Every sensor/device connected to the Internet is vulnerable to hacking. Compromised sensors/devices are bad news, not just for the owners but for everyone.

A few weeks ago, malware named Mirai was used to attack and control thousands of IoT devices. Then, these compromised devices were used to take down major parts of the Internet.

The gateway reduces the number of sensors/devices connected to the Internet, as sensors/devices only connect to the gateway. However, this makes the gateway itself a target and the first line of defense. This is why security must be a top priority for any gateway.

Conclusion

In the future IoT era, IoT gateways will play a very important role as they will become the link between sensing networks and traditional communication networks.