Edge Packet Aggregation for Industrial Digital Twin Management
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Solution Overview
Problem
Industrial devices frequently generate a large number of small packets using low-latency high-speed communication protocols, leading to excessive costs in packet transmission and processing when communicating with cloud platforms.
Innovation Solution
An edge device aggregates device data from multiple small packets using a low-latency high-speed protocol and converts it into a single packet using a high-latency low-speed protocol for transmission to a cloud platform, reducing the number of packets and associated costs.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Speed
If industrial devices use low-latency high-speed communication protocols to generate multiple small packets, then communication speed and responsiveness are improved, but packet transmission and processing costs increase excessively
Solution Approach 1:
The edge device merges multiple small packets received from industrial devices into a single aggregated packet before transmitting to the cloud platform. This combining operation reduces the number of packets from many small packets to one larger packet, thereby reducing transmission and processing costs while maintaining the communication functionality.
Solution Approach 2:
The edge device acts as an intermediary between industrial devices and the cloud platform. It receives packets from industrial devices, processes and aggregates them, then transmits the aggregated data to the cloud platform. This intermediary role enables cost reduction by filtering and consolidating data before cloud transmission.
2Reliability
If industrial devices generate frequent small packets for real-time communication, then data transmission completeness is improved, but the number of packets increases leading to higher processing overhead
Solution Approach 1:
The edge device performs preliminary aggregation of packets before they reach the cloud platform. By pre-processing and combining multiple small packets into a single packet at the edge, the system reduces the processing overhead that would otherwise occur at the cloud platform while maintaining data transmission completeness.
Solution Approach 2:
Multiple small packets are merged into a single aggregated packet at the edge device. This merging reduces the total number of packets that need to be processed by the cloud platform, thereby reducing processing overhead while preserving the complete data information from all original packets.
Data Source
AI summary
A method includes an edge device of an industrial facility receiving a plurality of first packets associated with a first communication protocol from an industrial device of the industrial facility, extracting device data associated with the industrial device from the plurality of first packets associated with the first communication protocol, creating a second packet associated with a second communication protocol, the second packet including the device data associated with the industrial device in the plurality of first packets, and transmitting the second packet associated with the second communication protocol to a cloud platform to manage an industrial digital twin on the cloud platform based on the second packet.