IP Routers for Machine Control

Modern factories are comprised of complex equipment and subsystems that communicate via the Internet Protocol (IP) – the backbone of the Internet. The integration of new machines or subsystems can be compromised if they have a fixed range of IP addresses that conflict with other existing plant addresses or the overall addressing policy already in place.

Contemporary Controls' Skorpion IP routers address this issue – each machine or subsystem (which consists of multiple IP devices) connects to the LAN side of the router while keeping their same IP settings for the devices and the application, thus lowering installation costs and eliminating troubleshooting.

The IP address for the WAN port on the IP router is the only setting that requires modification to join the factory network, allowing rapid integration and multiple machines to reuse the same configuration on the LAN side. The various machine subsystems are presented as one device to the plant network but can be easily accessed individually by using various features of the IP router like Port Forwarding, Port Range Forwarding and Network Address Translation (NAT).

IP routers allow the machine builder to retain the same configuration used during factory acceptance testing when installing at the customer site.

IP routers are also used to isolate traffic and to gain secure access to machines remotely. Some Skorpion IP router models support Virtual Private Network (VPN) functionality. This can be enabled to allow secure remote access to the machine at the site for remote diagnostics and troubleshooting. This allows remote access to the machine over the internet and through the plant network for servicing. Plant data can be pushed to the cloud for further analysis for process optimization and/or predictive maintenance.

Skorpion IP routers have been successfully used in robotics, automated guided vehicles (AGVs), packaging, scientific equipment, and more. Skorpion IP routers reduce installation time, eliminate IP conflicts, and easily comply with your customer's IP requirements.