A complete SCADA,and an IIoT platform around it

SENTIENT Platform

Where an IIoT platform takes you further

A traditional SCADA is designed around one plant and the controllers inside it, and it does that job well. SENTIENT keeps all of that and adds the things a platform can do once it is no longer tied to a single site.

Scripting for the things no menu anticipates

Most logic is built visually in the rule engine. When a calculation or a sequence goes past what a rule chain should express, SENTIENT gives you a proper scripting layer to reach for.

fn csv_esc(v) {
    let s = v.to_string();
    s.replace(""", """");
    `"${s}"`
}

fn specific_energy(kwh, tonnes) {
    if tonnes <= 0.0 { return (); }
    kwh / tonnes
}

let tz = ctx.timezone;
let rows = [];

for tag in shift.tags {
    if tag.quality != "good" { continue; }
    rows.push([
        tag.name,
        csv_esc(tag.value),
        tag.ts.to_local(tz),
    ]);
}

emit_report("shift_summary", rows);

Rhai

A small, fast, sandboxed language built into the platform. Scripts run close to the data with predictable performance, which is what you want for a calculation evaluated on every incoming value. Typed, easy to read, and approachable for a process engineer.

export function transform(msg) {
  const { deviceId, payload, ts } = msg;

  const tags = Object.entries(payload)
    .filter(([, v]) => v !== null && v !== "")
    .map(([key, value]) => ({
      key: `${deviceId}/${key}`,
      value: Number(value),
      ts,
    }));

  const bad = tags.filter((t) => Number.isNaN(t.value));
  if (bad.length) {
    ctx.warn(`dropped ${bad.length} non-numeric tags`);
  }

  return { tags: tags.filter((t) => !Number.isNaN(t.value)) };
}

JavaScript

The full language when you need it — for complex transformations, integrations with outside services, or logic ported from a system you are replacing. Familiar to any developer you already have.

What people build with it

• Derived tags — specific energy, yield, moisture-corrected tonnage
• Custom alarm conditions that depend on several signals at once
• Payload transformation for an unusual device or protocol
• Report fields that need a calculation the template editor does not cover
• Integrations that post to an internal API on an event
• Batch and sequence logic that spans more than one machine

Built on the Industry 4.0 principles

Industry 4.0 is usually described by four design principles. They are a useful way to read everything above, because SENTIENT is the data and connectivity layer a programme like that rests on — the part that has to be in place before any of the rest becomes possible.

Interconnection

Machines, devices, sensors and people able to reach one another. The gateway speaks to any PLC across 25 protocols, brings in meters, analysers and sensors alongside them, and reaches remote sites over cellular or LoRa.

Information transparency

Production data collected and given context. The asset hierarchy means a reading always carries the plant, line and machine it came from, and the historian keeps it long enough for the comparison to be worth making.

Technical assistance

Information shaped to help people decide and act. Role-based dashboards, alarms that escalate until someone acknowledges, reports delivered in the format each recipient works in, and the plant in your pocket when you are not on site.

Decentralised decisions

Routine decisions made where they happen. Rule chains run on the gateway as well as the server, so interlocks, sequences and setpoint changes carry on independently — and keep logging — while the link to the server is down.

Of the wider Industry 4.0 picture, SENTIENT covers the connectivity, data, analytics and systems-integration side. Robotics, additive manufacturing and augmented reality sit alongside it rather than inside it — and every one of them needs a data layer like this underneath to be worth installing.