A UNIVERSAL MACHINEFOR THE INDUSTRIAL
INTERNET OF THINGS

MultiConnect® Conduit1

A Universal Machine for the Industrial Internet of Things
The term “Universal Machine”, introduced in 1936 by the mathematician
and computer pioneer Alan Turing, is the theoretical basis for all modern
computers. Today’s smartphones epitomize that visionary concept. MultiTech
is employing the universal machine idea to encapsulate the functionality
and ﬂexible performance of the MultiConnect® Conduit, a visionary platform
speciﬁcally designed to enable the industrial Internet of Things (IoT).

The industrial IoT should not be confused withthe many billions of consumer devices thatare predicted to emerge in the future - it is aseparate market, also with enormous potential,
which will be realized by overcoming thesigniﬁcant barriers that exist today.
In hardware terms, the Conduit is a gateway that is fully certiﬁed and carrierapproved as an end-device. What distinguishes it from other gateway products
is the platform architecture, which was developed to meet the following
industrial IoT criteria:
Advanced Wireless Connectivity: To enable machine-to-machine (M2M)
connectivity using various wireless interfaces, including technologies such aslong-range, low-power RF, to connect sensors and machines to the gateway.
In turn, the gateway employs a cellular modem to deliver data to the preferreddata center.
Robust Management: To provide an online application store for industrial
things as a platform for both developers and IT personnel to provision, deploy,and manage their gateway and associated sensors and devices. The online
application store model, on which this platform is based, has proved to be an
efficient distribution and management process.

2Advanced Conﬁgurability: To enable users to create applications quickly andeasily using an intuitive graphical interface. This process does not require
programming skill, rather it empowers individuals who are not practiced insoftware development to create complex IoT applications using drag-anddrop icons.
Open Development Environment: To provide a choice of development
environments in order to meet the different requirements of various softwaredevelopment communities and the diversity of the application space. The moreenvironments supported, the wider the potential adoption of the platform.
It’s a tall order, but one that MultiTech has realized in the MultiConnect
Conduit platform.

Advanced Wireless Connectivity
Machine-to-machine communication has traditionally employed Ethernet
and other wired technologies. However, wireless technologies, such as RF
cable-replacement, have become an attractive alternative for various reasons,
including quick and cost-effective deployment. The Conduit gateway canbe optimized for application connectivity by populating the gateway withthe appropriate mCards. In plug-and-play fashion, mCards offer a variety ofconnectivity options, including both traditional wired connectivity such as
Ethernet and serial cable, as well as advanced connectivity such as Semtech’s
LoRa™ long-range, low power RF technology.
LoRa has signiﬁcant competitive beneﬁts: robust performance even in noisy RFenvironments; deep penetration into buildings and industrial structures; and anextended battery life. The key advantages of deploying the Conduit with LoRa
connectivity include duplex communication and intelligence in the end points,
known as mDots.
Access to the mDot enables the ability to change the parameters ofthe device, update ﬁrmware, and conﬁrm the device is fully operational.
Intelligence in the mDots is provided to optimize data transmission, such as
only sending exception data. A sensor might measure its parameter at short3

intervals, but there is no need to transmit the result if it is within the predeﬁned performance limits, meaning that more end points can be deployed
and battery life is further extended.

Robust Management: An Online Application Store forIndustrial Things
The ability to download an app to a smartphone or tablet and be able to use it
right away has become something we take for granted. The application store
model represents a very efficient distribution and deployment process. An
online store allows the IoT application to be deployed by authorized parties inthe same way that PC images are deployed to new PCs when they come onto
the corporate network. Therefore, this is an automated process with which IT
personnel in different locations are very familiar. It is not something most ofus think about, but replicating that process for industrial IoT applications will
enable the creation of an ecosystem having both public and private sections.
Applications have the potential to be monetized in the public sector andproprietary programs feature secure access in the private sector.

MultiTech enables standard applications tobe obtained from the world’s ﬁrst online
store for industrial things, a groundbreaking
development that enables immediate
out-of-the-box customization of theMultiConnect Conduit gateway.

4This model allows developers at companies with complementary products,
such as sensors, to post applications that integrate their products with theConduit gateway. Having these applications available increases the ease-of-use
and likelihood-of-adoption for both the sensors and the Conduit platform. Once
deployed, the gateway can be conﬁgured to check for updates, ensuring thatthe latest code version is distributed and deployed automatically.

Advanced Conﬁgurability
IT personnel are tasked with the rollout, management, and maintenance ofIoT network deployments. They want to control the functionality that theapplication provides without the need to write code. Therefore, we haveincorporated a graphical user interface that empowers individuals who are
unfamiliar with developing software to create complex IoT applications usingdrag-and-drop icons. These IT individuals only need to know the requirements,
such as the sensor should only send data when the measured parameter goesoutside preset limits. With the requirements deﬁned, they are able to develop
the instructions using an interface that is fast, intuitive, and similar to the othertools they use to resolve networking issues; a visual design environment thatincorporates IBM’s Node-RED technology.
In summary, the application is represented by a ﬂow chart and the code that
performs the various actions is embedded in an icon. These drag-and-drop
icons are used to create associations between objects and invoke various
types of actions. Clicking on an icon allows the action to be edited a variety ofways, including setting conditional statements; reporting data to a preferredcloud platform, Dropbox or Twitter; or sending simple SMS/text message
conﬁrmations. As well as enabling the easy creation of applications, thefact that IT has access to the development process allows extensions andmodiﬁcations to be made at a later date.

5

MultiTech employed
the Node-RED visualdevelopment tool, shown
here, and reﬁned it for
use in an industrial IoT
environment. The interfacemakes it easy to wire
together ﬂows using thewide range of nodes inthe palette. Flows are then
immediately pushed todeployed hardware.

Open Development Environment
The platform is open not only on the hardware side, through the use ofinterchangeable mCards, but also from a software and conﬁgurability
perspective. To meet the needs of a wide user group of software engineers
with different skill sets and preferences, the MultiConnect Conduit platform
features two main development paths (see ﬁgure 1) which trade off ﬂexibility
and simplicity:
Open Linux: The Open Linux environment encompasses a diverse group ofIoT applications and software developers. This development path is extremely
ﬂexible to meet almost any application or developer need; however, it also
requires signiﬁcant knowledge and programming skill. The environment
comprises core packages, utilities, and drivers; an OS distribution build andcustomization tools; and language support that includes C/C++, Python,Ruby, Pearl, C#, and a Java SDK. This environment is ideal if you are porting
an existing Linux application to our hardware platform; have strong language
preferences; or need access to advanced utilities, custom drivers, and open
source applications. Applications developed in this environment can be preinstalled on the Conduit hardware as part of a MultiTech custom product variant
program, featuring custom branding and kitting if desired.

6

Web Developer/IT: Thissecond environmentis the simplest, from adevelopment perspective,
and it provides asigniﬁcant amount of
native functionality.
Speciﬁcally, it contains
core routing functions
and features, browserbased conﬁguration,
remote management
functionality, and adevelopment sandbox
for custom applications.
Figure 1 illustrates the two development paradigms
The development sandbox exposes core device
functionality through a JavaScript API, along with the graphical development
tools that were covered previously. This development environment is thequickest and most cost-effective way to develop a typical IoT monitoring andcontrol application. IT professionals and web developers can use it to build aproduction-ready solution in a matter of days or even hours.

Summary
MultiTech identiﬁed that machine-to-machine communications platforms
were approaching an inﬂection point. We recognized that for broad adoption,
platforms had to be ﬂexible and affordable, which we enabled through acomprehensive portfolio of plug-in mCards designed to integrate with theMultiConnect Conduit gateway. Additionally, it was important to meet thediverse needs of the software development community, while also enabling
web developers and IT personnel to easily create or modify applications using
a drag-and-drop interface. In doing so, we’ve created a process that provides
end-to-end management of the edge network and its functionality. Finally, weimplemented the ﬁrst online application store for industrial things to accelerate
IoT innovation, simplify deployment, and expand the connected world.

7

Learn more about MultiTech at www.multitech.com

World Headquarters - U.S.

EMEA Headquarters

Tel:
Toll-Free:763-785-3500
800-328-9717

Tel:+(44) 118 959 7774

Email:

sales@multitech.co.uk

Email:

sales@multitech.com

Features are subject to change without notice.
Trademarks and Registered Trademarks: MultiTech and the MultiTech logo,
MultiConnect: Multi-Tech Systems, Inc. All other products and technologies arethe trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
9/148© 2014 by Multi-Tech Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.