Smart manufacturing requires a thoughtful IoT architecture that balances real-time local processing with cloud analytics.
The Three-Tier Architecture
Tier 1: Edge Devices
Sensors, PLCs, and microcontrollers collecting raw data. At this tier, latency must be sub-millisecond for safety-critical systems.
Tier 2: Edge Gateway
An industrial PC or Raspberry Pi CM4 aggregates device data, runs local ML models for anomaly detection, and buffers data during connectivity loss.
Tier 3: Cloud Platform
Aggregated data flows to the cloud for long-term storage, cross-plant analytics, and executive dashboards.
Protocol Selection
Avoiding Vendor Lock-In
Use open protocols at every layer. Avoid proprietary device clouds. Design your data model to be portable across AWS IoT, Azure IoT Hub, or a self-hosted MQTT broker.
Rohan Desai
Technical Writer · CoreFi Tech
A seasoned practitioner at CoreFi Tech with deep expertise in this domain. Writes about emerging technologies and practical engineering approaches.