The basic function of the Internet of Things gateway is to interact sensors or other devices in the local area network with devices in the wide area network, and collect and transmit data. Internet of Things gateways have the functions of power supply, memory storage and PC-like, but in a solid shell, they can be bridge components, which can connect ot devices in factories or industrial environments, obtain data from machines, controls or other components in OT settings, and transmit them to the IT world or data center or cloud with technical standards, thus completing the report and analysis of the Internet of Things that cannot work in OT settings.
The main functions of the Internet of Things gateway can be divided into:
(1) extensive access ability
At present, there are many technical standards for short-distance communication, and the only common WSNs technology is Lonworks. ZigBee, 6LowPAN, RUBEE and so on. Various technologies are mainly aimed at a certain application, lacking compatibility and system planning. At present, the standardization of Internet of Things gateways has been carried out at home and abroad, such as 3GPP and Sensor Working Group, to realize the interconnection of various communication technical standards.
② Manageability
Strong management ability is essential for any large network. First of all, we should manage the gateway well, such as registration management, authority management, state supervision and so on. The gateway manages the nodes in the subnet, such as obtaining the identification, status, attributes and energy of the nodes. Remote wake-up, control, diagnosis, upgrade and maintenance. Due to different technical standards of subnets, different complexity of protocols and different management capabilities of gateways. A modular Internet of Things gateway is proposed to manage different perceptual networks and different applications, and the unified management interface technology is used to ensure the unified management of peripheral network nodes.
③ Protocol conversion ability
The protocol conversion from different sensor networks to access networks encapsulates the data with lower standard format to ensure that the protocols of different sensor networks can become unified data and signaling; The data packets sent by the upper layer are parsed into signaling and control instructions that can be recognized by the perceptual layer protocol.
All networks have a boundary that restricts the communication of devices directly connected to them. Therefore, if the network wants to communicate with devices, nodes or networks outside this boundary, it needs the function of gateway. A gateway is usually described as a combination of a router and a modem.
The gateway is implemented at the edge of the network and manages all data from inside or outside the network. When one network wants to communicate with another network, the data packet will be transmitted to the gateway and then routed to the destination through the most efficient path. In addition to routing data, the gateway stores information about the internal paths of the host network and the paths of any other networks it encounters.