A little retro, but fit: entering the digital age with analogue sensors

Anyone who wants to digitise their machines quickly realises: there are many roads to Rome — except that this Rome lies somewhere in the IIoT, and even the smallest detour can cost a lot of money. Here are the key tips for a successful and affordable retrofit:

1. Renew as much as necessary, preserve as much as possible

The whole idea of retrofitting is that something existing can be upgraded for new tasks. So why shouldn’t what applies to the machine itself also apply to the sensors? With the right hardware, it’s easy to digitise existing analogue sensor technology and use the resulting data for applications such as automation, remote monitoring or predictive maintenance. To do this, the analogue output signals in the form of voltage or current are tapped and converted into a digital format. Ideally, the analogue values are retained so that they can continue to be used locally.

The autosen display AD003 follows exactly this principle. It turns your existing sensors into true all-rounders in both the analogue and digital worlds. It not only displays the analogue values, but also transmits them via an IO-Link interface as digital data to the io-key and into the cloud — regardless of whether the sensor supports IO-Link or not. This means the sensors can be monitored remotely, the data analysed, documented and used for all kinds of applications.

The possibilities are therefore virtually unlimited — without having to replace a single sensor!

2. IIoT instead of IIo-IT

If digitisation turns into an IT project, things can get complicated. That’s why it’s called IIoT and not IIo-IT — and why we say: Never change a running system? Yes and no!

Yes, when it comes to preserving an existing control architecture and IT that work well locally. No, when processes can be optimised, data silos broken down and the overall system efficiency improved. How does that fit together? With binary switching analogue sensors, the signals can be brought into the cloud without having to intervene in the controllers. The PLC continues doing its job undisturbed; you get the values that matter to you on your dashboard. That’s IT/OT integration without side effects, achievable for example via our IO-Link distributors AD006 and AD007 for 6 or 10 connected sensors respectively.

3. IO-Link can do everything — but not everything can do IO-Link

IO-Link is the global standard for the IIoT and Industry 4.0. Accordingly, there is a large number of IO-Link sensors on the market. There are now only a few applications that can’t be implemented with it — but they do exist. What if yours is one of them? Even in this scenario, analogue sensors, in their countless designs and operating principles, can play to their strengths. Impossible? Not when you use converter modules such as the autosen AD010. It brings up to eight sensors into the cloud, enabling many things that, in a pure IO-Link architecture, are still a thing of the future today.

Not either/or, but both/and — that’s the magic formula of digitisation. Use the capabilities of your analogue sensor technology to truly harness the potential of the IoT. A sensible combination of what you already have and what’s new is fast, cost-effective and sustainable — fully in line with the retrofit concept.