Box PC for IoT inside industrial automation.

The BE10A, from Men Mikro Elektronik, is a space- and power-saving box PC with low power consumption that can be operated in a light, space-saving housing without fans, allowing for maintenance-free operation. Its versatile I/O possibilities make it especially suited for IoT gateway applications in industrial automation.

Diversity with Low-PowerThe mini box PC is equipped with a Sitara™ AM57x processor from Texas Instruments, which is based on the ARM® Cortex®-A15 core. The box easily manages demanding processing and communication tasks despite its low power consumption of a maximum of 15 Watt at an operating temperature of up to 60°C. The BE10A offers flexible and task specific configuration options for PC-based process automation or robotics control. Also in more complex applications, like energy substations, the box PC can handle the communication between sensors and server or cloud. Deployed as a gateway device it can exchange data with the control center. In HMI applications, such as industrial control units, the BE10A is interfacing between the screen and the peripheral devices.

One slot each for mSATA, microSD, PCI Express Mini Card und microSIM offer flexible expansion options for wireless functionality or storage.

Thanks to the PRU, the Programmable-Realtime Unit, which is integrated in the TI Sitara™ processors, the BE10A supports several industrial protocols like EtherCAT, EtherNet/IP, POWERLINK, PROFINET or SERCOS. They can be enabled by a simple firmware update, while traditionally additional hardware like FPGAs were needed. The firmware and update tools are available from Texas Instruments.

“It is exciting that MEN selected TI’s Sitara™ processor platform to provide their customers greater performance and more scalability,” said Adrian Valenzuela, marketing manager, Processors, TI. “The AM572x dual-core ARM® Cortex® - A15 with dual C66x DSPs is forty percent better when comparing Coremark scores against competing quad-core ARM® Cortex® – A9s. This kind of efficiency allows developers to have a dramatically simpler design experience and speed their time to market.”

With its compact and fanless housing, the BE10A fits in any existing system environment as wall-mount, DIN rail or inside 19”-systems and can – due to its flexible configuration options – manage various tasks in industrial environments.

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