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Dear Experts,
Our design firm produces interactive installations in public places. We create spaces where people can interact with lights, media and other people in new ways. Much of our work features LED lighting and sensing. You can see samples here if interested: http://electroland.net
We have several new projects and want to make an investment in an industrial-grade automation technology for collecting sensing data, and perhaps controlling various widgets using digital or analog output. We recently completed an installation using Beckhoff EtherCat fieldbus boxes for data collection, and while we like the hardware a lot some aspects of the protocol are not desirable for us.
Here is our wishlist for a combo of hardware and protocol:
* Provide various IO in wet and dry locations
* Communicate with IO points from Java, with as few layers in between as possible.
* Operate > 30Hz but likely not more than 50Hz
* Be switchable by common Ethernet hardware
* Coexist on physical media with heterogeneous devices (IP camera, laptop, etc)
* Possibly be routed/tunneled on other physical networks eg: VDSL for remote connectivity
* Possibly operate using a software-only master in Java
* Have a shallow learning curve for associates
In order to help define the problem I have diagrammed two common installation scenarios in this PDF file: http://bit.ly/hHgixj
Based on the above requirements it seems to us that a TCP/IP-based protocol is needed but we are open to other solutions. Please let me know if more details are needed. Any input is greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Our design firm produces interactive installations in public places. We create spaces where people can interact with lights, media and other people in new ways. Much of our work features LED lighting and sensing. You can see samples here if interested: http://electroland.net
We have several new projects and want to make an investment in an industrial-grade automation technology for collecting sensing data, and perhaps controlling various widgets using digital or analog output. We recently completed an installation using Beckhoff EtherCat fieldbus boxes for data collection, and while we like the hardware a lot some aspects of the protocol are not desirable for us.
Here is our wishlist for a combo of hardware and protocol:
* Provide various IO in wet and dry locations
* Communicate with IO points from Java, with as few layers in between as possible.
* Operate > 30Hz but likely not more than 50Hz
* Be switchable by common Ethernet hardware
* Coexist on physical media with heterogeneous devices (IP camera, laptop, etc)
* Possibly be routed/tunneled on other physical networks eg: VDSL for remote connectivity
* Possibly operate using a software-only master in Java
* Have a shallow learning curve for associates
In order to help define the problem I have diagrammed two common installation scenarios in this PDF file: http://bit.ly/hHgixj
Based on the above requirements it seems to us that a TCP/IP-based protocol is needed but we are open to other solutions. Please let me know if more details are needed. Any input is greatly appreciated.
Thanks!