Unlocks the Simplicity and Success of Open Source for Industry 4.0

With a veritable ecosystem of hardware products, software tools and Cloud services, the brand has made great strides in the industrial world, offering a range of products that are versatile, customisable, powerful and reliable while maintaining the ease of use and convenience that have determined the company’s success since its founding in 2008.

Too good to be true? Let’s have a look at some of the offerings that are putting Arduino Pro front and center in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Opta: for industrial automation

Opta is Arduino Pro’s first micro PLC. Designed in partnership with Finder, a leading industrial and building automation device manufacturer, Opta is born for high-level IoT (Internet of Things). Programmable within the Arduino environment, including with standard PLC languages, it offers a powerful STM32H747XI dual-core Cortex®-M7 +M4 MCU to perform real-time control, carry out monitoring and implement predictive maintenance applications. Secure and durable, it supports OTA firmware updates and ensures full data security, from the hardware to the Cloud, thanks to an onboard secure element and X.509 standard compliance.

Opta accelerates any automation project’s turnaround, because it combines industrial-grade features with the ease-of-use and speed that the Arduino ecosystem is known for, also thanks to numerous readily available software libraries and sketches.

Released in three connectivity variants (Opta Lite, Opta RS485 and Opta WiFi), it is the ideal solution to keep everything under control in a simple and intuitive way through dashboards constantly updated via the Arduino Cloud (or third-party services).

Nicla: advanced sensing

The Nicla family consists of super-compact modules (the form factor is just 22.86x22.86 mm!) designed to integrate AI and machine learning into a wide range of industrial applications. High sensor quality and low power consumption are the perfect combination to sense, see and hear any event, anywhere it may happen – at the heart of autonomous, battery-operated systems.

In particular, Nicla Sense ME, developed in collaboration with Bosch Sensortec, integrates motion and environmental sensors with Bluetooth® connectivity and is suitable for industrial and building automation projects capable of leveraging advanced sensor fusion and TinyML.

Nicla Vision features a 2 MP color camera and the intelligence required to process its images, so it can extract useful information from what it sees – so you can keep your eye on the big picture.

Finally, Nicla Voice was developed with a powerful NDP120 Neural Decision Processor by Syntiant, which mimics human neural pathways to enable the integration of speech recognition into any project, running multiple AI algorithms and automating even the most complex of tasks. But that’s not all: Nicla Voice comes with a comprehensive package of sensors: in addition to its high-performance microphone, it features a smart 6-axis motion sensor and a magnetometer, making it your perfect ally for predictive maintenance, gesture/voice recognition and contactless applications.

Portenta Machine Control: industry-grade intelligence

Portenta Machine Control is a fully centralized, low-power, compact industrial control unit ready for DIN-rail installation, capable of driving a wide range of equipment and machines. Simply put, it’s the IoT brain you can add to existing machinery or new projects to retrofit, upgrade or develop your ideas in entirely new directions.

Perfect for real-time data collection, Portenta Machine Control supports local and remote equipment control, even via the Cloud. How? It can connect to the network directly through Ethernet or use Wi-Fi and Bluetooth® Low Energy technologies to ensure low-cost, fast and stable data transmission, all while guaranteeing safe information exchanges thanks to its internal crypto chip. It is ideal for predictive maintenance and AI integration in the factory, and is easy to program according to the Arduino framework or with standard PLC languages.

Automating automotive: How Portenta H7 rose to the challenge

Arduino Pro’s Portenta range includes high-performance, industry-rated boards such as Portenta H7, Portenta X8 and the more recent Portenta C33. Countless companies have already adopted these powerful modules to improve their production processes and product offering. A great example of this is Mercedes-Benz subsidiary Montajes y Estampaciones Metálicas (MEM), which manufactures the leading carmaker’s V-Class and Vito frames near Barcelona. Arduino partnered with Engapplic, a Spanish IIoT solutions provider, to create an Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) controller for them based upon Portenta H7.

Portenta H7 can be programmed with high-level languages and AI while performing low-latency operations. It has two parallel cores to simultaneously run high-level code along with real-time tasks: its main processor is the STMicroelectronics dual-core STM32H747, including a Cortex® M7 running at 480 MHz and a Cortex® M4 running at 240 MHz. The two cores communicate via a Remote Procedure Call mechanism that allows calling functions on the other processor to run seamlessly.

This was the perfect answer when Mercedes needed to replace a 25-year-old machine with a new AGV controller that would transport pieces around the factory to different vehicle assembly stations, with the intelligence to collaborate into the production process, enabling managers to track manufacturing parts and better monitor activities in the factory – in other words, take a new step towards Industry 4.0.

The final solution also needed to be capable of having different drivers of communication, such as the CAN protocol, and be a modular system that was able to work with and resolve incidents. It also had to have low power consumption, monitor battery data, switch on in less than one second, and guarantee long-lasting performance with a 10-year warranty.

Engapplic chose Arduino Pro’s Portenta H7 for its high modularity, creating a solution where a single dashboard allows users to monitor energy, inputs and outputs and control engines. The dual core functionality of Portenta H7 is beneficial in controlling the actions in the AGV: the real-time management is carried out with the M4 core that regulates the inputs and outputs, while the M7 core is utilised for the motorization of the battery.

Being both easy to program and highly customisable, Portenta H7 enabled rapid development of the solution with a 50% cost savings versus equivalent controllers. Furthermore, basing the project on open-source hardware allows for the addition of other functions in the future, making it ready for Industry 4.0 and any new evolution in the manufacturing field.

Why choose open source?

With products such as these available, it is clear why a growing number of companies today recognize the benefits of the open source approach. Highly flexible, scalable and customisable, these solutions are able to meet the specific needs of different industries and adapt quickly to market conditions and emerging needs, avoiding so-called 'vendor lock-in'. This versatility is also often combined with a significant reduction in costs compared to proprietary alternatives, thanks to the large and growing community of open-source developers. On the other hand, Arduino Pro’s support for licensing management ensures that companies can effectively protect their intellectual property.

So, are you ready to explore the cutting-edge of technology for your business – from IoT to AI – and reap the benefits of a new level of innovation that is readily available, easy to customise and, of course, open to all? Arduino Pro’s ecosystem is ready to introduce you to the many benefits and opportunities of Industry 4.0 and to be by your side every step of the way.

Conclusion

Learn more about the industrial-grade Nicla sensor platform, the Portenta H7 family and Arduino Opta microPLC with Industrial IoT capabilities. Click here