Equipment connection guide

1. Which one to use

Remote collection is being opened to design-partner companies first, one by one. Companies it is not open to do not see "Remote collectors" in the account menu. AASX import is available to owners and admins of every company.

2. Dropping an AASX file

1. Drop the files on the "Equipment Master" (or "Equipment Register Management") screen, or open account menu > "Import equipment from AAS Studio" (owner or admin). Dropping on the screen opens the same window with those files.
2. Drop one zip from AAS Studio (Integration > Export > Download full bundle), or several AASX files (up to 20 MB in total).
3. In "Preview — nothing has changed yet", check the numbers of types, equipment, plants, lines, hierarchy nodes and equipment details, and what was skipped or not created, then press "Import".

• A type file becomes an equipment type and an instance file becomes a piece of equipment. Several units of one type stay linked to that type.
• Dropping the same file again ends with "Same as what was already imported — nothing changes". A changed file leaves only the differences on the "Change proposals" tab, where a person applies or rejects them. Nothing is deleted or overwritten automatically.
• Required fields missing from the bundle get default values and are shown as "Check needed".
• It takes AASX files of AAS metamodel 3.0, 3.1 and 3.2 (JSON or XML) and reads each by the metamodel version the file states (including 3.1, which KOSMO requires). The open-source tool for creating and checking AASX is VEXPLOR AAS Studio (waceinc.github.io/vexplor-aas).

3. Connecting a remote collector

1. In the account menu open "Remote collectors" > "Collectors" tab > "Connect a collector", check the collector name (where it is installed) and the server address, and press "Make the connect command". The enrollment code works once, within 24 hours.
2. Paste the line on the factory PC — a terminal on Linux (x64 or arm64), or Command Prompt or PowerShell opened with "Run as administrator" on Windows (x64). It downloads, checks the SHA256, installs, registers and starts in one go. The Windows package is available from VEXPLOR Edge 1.2.0, and the lines on both tabs carry the same enrollment code.
3. When the collector registers, "Connected" appears on the same screen by itself (checked every 3 seconds).
4. Make and approve a list on the "Read lists" tab. No value is sent before approval. A collector waiting for approval asks for its list every 10 seconds, so it starts reading within seconds of the approval.

curl -fsSL https://github.com/waceinc/vexplor-edge/releases/latest/download/get.sh | sudo sh -s -- --server https://<this server> --code <enrollment code>

powershell -NoProfile -Command "[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol=[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072; & ([scriptblock]::Create((irm https://github.com/waceinc/vexplor-edge/releases/latest/download/get.ps1))) -Server https://<this server> -Code <enrollment code>"

• There are two ways to make a list — "Create a new draft" (pick equipment from the register and type the address and tags) and "Draft from AASX" (for equipment imported from AASX, the same file's AID fills in the tags). Either way, a person approves it before the collector gets it.
• In "Connect a collector" you can also preview the list from the same AASX and approve it in advance (pre-approval — optional). A collector registered with that command starts reading at once. It is not available to companies with two-person approval, and if the list changes in the meantime it waits for approval instead.
• Tag roles — Value, Run state, Production count, Alarm. An alarm tag is linked to an "Alarm Master" entry of the same equipment.
• Protocols — OPC UA, Modbus, MQTT and HTTP, plus Siemens S7 and Mitsubishi MC (VEXPLOR Edge 1.2.0 or later) and LS ELECTRIC XGT (1.3.0 or later), all three read only. They were tested against test servers built from the published formats and manuals, not yet against real PLCs (for XGT, check the word order of values over several words on the real PLC first).
• The read interval is at least 10 seconds (a company setting). The cloud does not take one-second raw values.
• Each plan has a limit on the number of collectors. At the limit, only new registrations are refused; collectors already registered keep collecting.
• Every installation and configuration option of the collector is in the VEXPLOR Edge install guide (github.com/waceinc/vexplor-edge — docs/install.md).

4. Security and direction

• Connections go one way, from the plant to the cloud (https on port 443, outbound). The cloud never connects into the plant, and there is no remote command that stops a collector or equipment.
• The collector signs every request with the Ed25519 key it made when it registered. The server checks the signature, the time (within 5 minutes) and a one-time value (nonce).
• If the factory PC goes out through a proxy, enter it under "Does the PC go out through a proxy?". The collector connects to its server over https only.
• While the server cannot be reached, the collector keeps values on the PC and sends them later (up to 30 days by default). A batch sent twice is stored once.
• "Pause collection" is recorded as an approved empty list, and the server refuses requests from a "Revoke"d collector. Neither sends a command to the collector.

5. Where the values show up

• Alarms — alarm tags pass through on and off delays and the deadband and appear in the "Alarm Event Log" and the shop-floor "Alarm Status Board".
• Run state — run state tags are recorded as run periods of the equipment. While values stop arriving, the period is kept as "communication lost (unknown)", not as a stop.
• Collector status — the "Remote collectors" window shows the last receive time, equipment links, queued batches, the collector version, recent batches and the number of periods with unknown state.

In preparation: production count > work order results, downtime, OEE and preventive maintenance screens, and value trend views. This guide will describe those screens once they are ready.

6. Retention and metering

7. When something goes wrong

8. Using it with AAS Studio

• Creating and checking AASX files is done in VEXPLOR AAS Studio (open source); the equipment register, business screens and remote collection values are in Logic Studio.
• Download an AASX with zero violations from AAS Studio and drop it on the "Equipment Master" screen, or on account menu > "Import equipment from AAS Studio", to make it part of the equipment register. If the file has an AID (collection connection), "Draft from AASX" fills in the read list tags.
• With the tag hints that AAS Studio 2.5.0 and later put in an AASX, "Draft from AASX" pre-fills the roles (run state, production count, alarm and more) and the upper specification limits. A person checks and corrects them before approving.