Most analyzers in the industry predicated that there will be more than 50 billion devices by 2020, connected to the Internet. This is described as the era of Internet of Things (IoT). The IoT is a big collection of smart sensors, networks, servers, and services that interact among them. This trend applies to all sectors or markets, and it is a way to automate, control, and manage factories, homes, transportation, energy, medical/healthcare facility, etc. All layers of networks, from applications, middleware, connectivity, and devices, will contribute to realizing the full power of IoT. For edge connectivity, the intelligent gateways play a major role communicating in between the devices and the cloud, collecting data from the devices for analysis, and forwarding the instructions from the upend servers to activate the devices.
To leverage the current internet infrastructure, an intelligent IoT gateway is developed for the purpose of connecting legacy and new equipment, from in-house cooling or heating devices, vending machine, to industrial robot and wind turbine, to get the data from them, and in return to control them intelligently based on the instructions or analytical results from the connected servers. Since most of the industrial automation devices are often designed in different protocols of interconnectivity. A versatile IoT gateway with various protocol supports is also used as the path between these automation devices and the cloud.