Robustel release next-gen IoT gateways

With a deep, well-established product range specialising in industrial IoT/M2M solutions, Robustel are always looking for new and innovative ways to service customers in key industrial verticals. Since the company’s founding in 2010 the key directive has been to listen and engage with the market to provide solutions that meet real world requirements and a competitive price point allowing for the scale and potential of massive IoT.

With the release of Robustel’s first generation 5G Industrial Gateway the R5020 in 2020, the company has seen a massive global trend in customers relying on Cloud IoT infrastructure to deliver a variety of IoT solutions across all verticals; However, there is a growing subsector of customers with demand for more processing being performed at the network edge, to avoid unnecessary network noise and congestion from high volumes of data being streamed over the cellular network.

The requirement for EDGE/FOG processing sees a need for new generation devices, boasting the cuttingedge network connectivity and management features customers have come to know from Robustel devices but with the inclusion of much higher levels of onboard smarts and processing combined with a more versatile and scalable operating system.

This is where the Edge Gateway series from Robustel hopes to revolutionise the industrial computer + router market by providing products that are not only available at a mass market price point but that also offer specifications and features that customers desperately need. “Traditionally the industrial edge IoT market has been the domain of two very distinct solutions…” says Robustel Global SVP of Sales and Product Marketing, Desmond Kuang, “We have seen customers unable to scale successfully because they are either buying a solution that is completely over specified for their requirements or they are trying to build their own solution with an industrial PC + router combination that adds an additional point of failure. Our Edge Gateway products are designed to solve both market issues in a single elegant solution.”

The Edge Gateway series from Robustel will initially launch with three product lines, of which the EG5100 and LG5100 with ARMv7 Architecture and EG5120 with ARMv8:

The EG5100 – Industrial EDGE router with global 4G/LTE connectivity.

The EG5120 – Industrial router with global 5G connectivity (3GPP Release 16) and 2.3 TOPS NPU to support AI Applications.

The LG5100 – An industrial LoRaWAN EDGE Gateway with global 4G/LTE Backhaul.

To support the new hardware, Robustel are releasing a brand-new version of their popular Linux based operating system RobustOS, called RobustOS Pro. This new operating system offers customers a Linux Debian11 (Bullseye) environment with support for Docker based applications. This move to a broadly adopted platform allows Robustel customers to rapidly develop, test and deploy new applications in whatever language they are comfortable developing in; in addition to giving customers access to over 50,000 existing applications in the Debian repository.

With these products Robustel hopes to enable adoption in cutting edge IoT applications like:

• Robotics
• Smart cities
• Automated/autonomous vehicles
• Camera based image recognition
• Real-time energy & grid management

Samples of Robustel’s Edge Gateway series are available now for proof of concept and design work from any of Robustel’s global distribution partners with mass market availability planned for Q4 2022.

The EG5100, EG5120 and LG5100 shared features:

• Utilises highly stable cellular connectivity for global band coverage
• High performance engine for running complex applications
• 2 X RS232/RS485 ports for connection to industrial devices
• 2 X DI and 2x DO simple monitoring and control
• Dual SIM card slots for multiple back-up communication options
• Wide operating temperature ranges, ideal for industrial applications
• Supports C, C++, Java, Python, giving users the ability to develop their own applications
• Access to more than 50,000 applications from the Debian repository
• Access to VPN options like Wireguard, IPsec and OpenVpn
• Full Modbus TCP and RTU to support transfer to cloud platforms
• Robustel's management platform RCMS for effective management of large devices.

The EG5120 feature:

• Cutting-edge (Release 16) 5G interface

The LG5100 feature:

• Supports global LoRaWAN frequency bands
• Compatible with LoRaWAN and private protocols
• Supports embedded LoRaWAN network server
• Up to 8 channels supports receive data simultaneously
• Supports Packet Forwarder Version 2.2.1 and Packet Forwarder Protocol Version