Drives and Controls Magazine
Home
Menu
IP67 controller supports IIoT edge applications
Published:  22 December, 2017

National Instruments (NI) has announced its first IP67-protected industrial controller. The IC-3173 controller can be used as an IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) edge node in harsh locations, including washdown manufacturing environments, test cells and outdoor locations, without needing a protective enclosure.

The controllers are aimed at applications such as automated image processing, data acquisition and control, in extreme environments. They support Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) ­– the evolution of the IEEE 802.1 Ethernet standard that delivers distributed time synchronisation, low latency and convergence of time-critical and general networking traffic. In addition to using TSN for controller-to-controller communication, engineers can also integrate synchronised sensor measurements using NI’s TSN-enabled CompactDAQ chassis.

The fanless controllers offer processors up to 2.2GHz Intel Core i7 dual-core devices, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, 64 GB storage, four Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) GigE ports, two USB 3.0 ports, and two DisplayPorts in a rugged design with no moving parts.

NI’s IP67-protected controller can be used in harsh industrial environments