PLC to Cloud

Changing industrial automation with AWS

Sven Goldstein, Product Manager

Beckhoff Automation
18.05.2017

© 2016, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
About Beckhoff Automation
Facts and figures
Headquarters: Verl, Germany
Employees worldwide: 3,350
Number of engineers: 1,100
Sales/technical offices in Germany: 20
Beckhoff companies worldwide: 35 countries
Subsidiaries and distributors: > 75 countries
Sales worldwide 2015 620 million € (+22 %)
Sales worldwide 2016 670 million € (+8 %)

Verl
 Components for industrial automation
The IPC Company The Automation Company

The I/O Company The Motion Company

 Products and system solutions
Industrial PC EtherCAT Box TwinCAT

Embedded PC Bus Terminal EtherCAT

Infrastructure Components Drive Technology XTS

TwinCAT automation software

• PLC, Motion and HMI in one software on one CPU

• PC-based control offers an “open” control system
• Abstraction is the key
• Functions in software independent of hardware
PC hardware

Fieldbus
Base: I/O TwinSAFE PLC Control Control Connectivity
TwinCAT (PID)

software

Motion NC PTP NC I CNC Robotics Measurement

Technology
IT challenges
IT challenges until 2011

• Self-hosting of web server infrastructure became an agony

• for us (manpower, availability, internet connection, costs)
• for our customers (delay times, availability)

Internet VPN-connected
subsidiaries

www.beckhoff.*
Round-Robin

Beckhoff Headquarters
Verl, Germany ftp.beckhoff.*
Web Web FTP
Server Server Server
IT challenges - lift and shift to AWS in 2011

• Web servers and FTP servers lifted to Amazon EC2

• Multiple instances in geographically distributed locations
Amazon EC2
Amazon S3
Amazon RDS

• Faster response times

• Better availability
• Faster download speed
• Less manpower in IT
IT challenges - situation now in 2017

• Situation now : even more services being used !

Amazon EC2
Amazon S3
Amazon RDS
Amazon Route 53
AWS Elastic Beanstalk
Amazon Cloud Front
Amazon SNS
AWS WAF
Energy data management
Energy data mangement requirements

• Energiedienstleitungsgesetz (EDL-G)
• Option 1: Energy audit
• Option 2: Building an energy management system (ISO50001)
• ISO50001 - many things to consider
• energy-political (definition of goals)
• organizational
• technical Administrative Building and R&D
11600 m2

Boards I/O IPC Drives Cabinet Service Warehouse

4000 m2 4000 m2 6500 m2 2000 m2 3500 m2 1600 m2 21000 m2
Energy data mangement approach

• Where to install energy measuring points?

• Pareto analysis: find 20% consumers that consume 80% of total energy
• Resulting areas:
• Product testing (climatic chamber)
• Lighting (old T8 pipes)
• Motors and compressors
• What to do with measured data?
• Historical data storage
• Visualization (live data + historical data)
• Simple analysis (data correlation)
Energy data mangement solution

Amazon EC2
Amazon Kinesis
Visualization

Amazon S3 Amazon
AWS IoT Redshift
AWS for automation projects
Goals of machine builders / end customers

• Reduce machine costs • Reduce production costs

• Smart machine optimization • Increase product quality
• Efficient maintenance windows • Efficient production control
• Increase machine attractivity • Minimize production losses

Increase competitiveness
Machine data capture and analysis

• Classic connectivity pyramid – data flow

• Sensor data acquired via PLC (fieldbus)
• EtherCAT, Profinet, Profibus, ...
• High-speed (µs !)
• Machine-to-Machine communication
• Data analysis can occur Data analysis

• on the PLC
• on a central server Data analysis
on the PLC
Machine data capture and analysis

• This approach has been used for years

• But problems arised:
• Hard-/Software costs (server+licenses)
• Know-How and staff required (IT)
• Poor scalability (data increase)
• AWS provides a solution Data analysis

Data analysis
on the PLC
Machine data capture and analysis

• This approach has been used for years

• But problems arised:
• Hard-/Software costs (server+licenses)
• Know-How and staff required (IT)
• Poor scalability (data increase) ???
• AWS provides a solution
• What do we need first ?
à Connectivity Data analysis
on the PLC
Machine data capture and analysis

• Recap: Energy management project

• AWS IoT perfectly suited
• Standardized transport (MQTT)
• Bidirectional
eco
• Security via TLS system
• Scalability AWS IoT IoT Rule

• Rule engine to forward data to eco-system

• PLC device should be able to
• send/receive data to/from AWS IoT
• secure communication via TLS
• use a standardized transport
Standard solutions by Beckhoff

• Launch: TwinCAT IoT product family

• Add-On for TwinCAT automation software
• Supports MQTT (among other protocols)
• Includes smartphone app (iOS, Android)
eco
• Enables push messages to wearables system
• Enables connectivity with AWS IoT AWS IoT IoT Rule

TwinCAT IoT
Standard solutions by Beckhoff

• Launch: EK9160 IoT Coupler

• Hardware device with analog/digital I/O
• Supports MQTT (among other protocols)
• Enables connectivity with AWS IoT
• Extendable I/O terminals
...
• Easy configuration via integrated website AWS IoT IoT Rule
Standard solutions by Beckhoff

• Launch: EK9160 IoT Coupler

Standard solutions by Beckhoff

• Launch: EK9160 IoT Coupler

Standard solutions by Beckhoff

• Launch: TwinCAT HMI

• Machine data visualization
• Supports MQTT (among other protocols)
Amazon EC2
• Client/Server, based on HTML5
• Extendable framework TwinCAT HMI Server

• Connectivity with AWS IoT AWS IoT

• Installable on Amazon EC2

• Web browser to visualize machine data

Web browser
(HMI Client)
Standard solutions by Beckhoff

• PoC: TwinCAT IoT Alexa Skill

• Voice recognition integration for PLC
• Based on Amazon Alexa
• Connectivity via AWS IoT
• PoC for Smart Home and Custom skill
AWS IoT Device AWS
Shadow Lambda

„Alexa, ask
TwinCAT to turn
lights in living
room on“
+
Amazon Amazon
Echo Echo Dot
Summary
Summary

• Beckhoff Automation manufacturer of automation systems

• Industrial-PCs, drives, motors, I/Os, automation software, ...
• First IT projects with AWS in 2011 (web srv infrastructure)
• Energy management project based on AWS IoT
• Standard products for AWS IoT connectivity
• TwinCAT IoT, EK9160
• Visualization for machine data on Amazon EC2
• TwinCAT HMI
• Voice recognition for PLC using Alexa
Thank you