Hardware makers are racing to connect almost every kind of industrial machine to the internet, and they know the value of connectivity increases exponentially when those machines can talk to one another. Interoperability is one of the biggest challenges foreseen by the makers of “internet of things” appliances, applications and connectivity solutions. That’s why National Instruments is creating an industrial IoT lab at its Austin, Texas, headquarters.
Intel, Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, OSIsoft, Kalypso and Xilinx are among the companies sponsoring the IoT lab. National Instruments said the lab will unite companies with expertise in communications protocols, controller hardware, I/O components, processing elements and software platforms.
“A working showcase for new technologies can help all companies involved drive breakthrough innovations for utility grids, manufacturing, asset health monitoring and several other industries,” said Jamie Smith, director of embedded systems at National Instruments. “The industrial ‘internet of things’ represents a collection of technology and data building next-generation distributed solutions – solutions that are going to change the way we think about transportation, energy and health care.”
“5G” testing
National Instruments is also taking a proactive approach to “5G” testing. The company established a lead user program for 5G prototypes in 2010.
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“We work with industry as well as academic researchers on developing prototypes,” said James Kimery, National Instruments’ director of wireless research, adding a major goal of the program is to bridge the gap between academia and industry.
“The academic research, in particular, stopped with a research paper, or it stopped with simulation,” Kimery said. “As you look at some of these 5G scenarios they are very complex and simulation only gets you so far. … If you’re trying to model a million devices on a network or 10 gigabits per second or more data rates, along with low latency, those are really challenging problems that I don’t think can be accurately described with a model.”
National Instruments is working with Nokia, the University of Texas at Austin, Bristol University in the U.K., and other universities in Europe and Asia.