FEATURE HIGHLIGHTS 

GEO-LOCATION SUPPORT

Our customers occasionally ask for a feature for specifying the geo-location of a SiteManager. This is especially useful if a SiteManager is mounted in a moving machine and is sending data to a cloud via its integrated Data Collection Module (DCM). With the 9.5 release, the entire range of hardware SiteManagers now supports a number of generally available USB GNSS devices for different Global Navigation Satellite System, such as GPS (US), Glonass (Russia), Galileo (EU), and BeiDou (China).

A new internal collector function in DCM can be configured to send latitude, longitude, altitude, and other GNSS related info to a cloud where the information can be used to plot the location of the SiteManager on a map. SiteManager Embedded does not support physical USB GNSS devices but will allow a local application to inject GNSS data to the DCM via the SM-E JSON API and have the DCM submit the coordinates to a cloud of choice.

This aligns perfectly with the recent release 1.8 of the Secomea Data Collection Cloud (DCC) that introduced a new dashboard map widget allowing you to have multiple machines represented by SiteManagers plotted on the same map, and when clicking a machine, will open a new dashboard with detailed machine info.

The GNSS data is also sent as heartbeat data to the GateManager. In the new 9.5 version, you can head to the GateManager Portal to click and show the SiteManager location in OpenStreetMap.
We are working on a list of supported USB GNSS devices, but generally we recommend devices based on the very widely used u-blox modules, especially u-blox 8. Such USB devices exist at attractive prices with varying cable length, so the antenna can be placed outside a cabinet or even on a vehicle by using a version with a water-resistant hole-mount antenna.

 

OPC UA ENHANCEMENTS

The DCM for both SiteManager hardware models and SiteManager Embedded for Linux have received some feature upgrades to OPC UA for improved security and usability.
In 9.4, we released encryption and certificate support for OPC UA as an experimental feature. With a few fixes and more mileage, release 9.5 should support even more use cases for securing OPC UA communication between a SiteManager and a PLC.

Additionally, and in close cooperation with our Italian distributor Direl, we have implemented support for OPC UA Browse names based on the OPC 10000-3 Address Space Model's definition of Extended Notation (C.2.3). The aim was to increase flexibility by resolving node IDs using browse paths.
We hope to be able to post some examples on our knowledge base in the near future.

 

FRAGATTACKS VULNERABILITY FIXES

In mid-May 2021, a collection of new WiFi vulnerabilities were published under the aggressive name FragAttacks (a contraction of ‘fragmentation' and ‘aggregation attacks'). The vulnerabilities affected any type of equipment with WiFi client or access point capabilities, including the SiteManager. The vulnerabilities came as a surprise to everybody given that the security of WiFi has significantly improved over the past few years. The issue here was the design of the WiFi protocols themselves, which affected even the latest security protocol WPA3.

We had to move fast, and it required several driver updates and a full update of our Linux kernel to version 5.12, to plug the holes; but already by end of May, we could present a first preview version with fixes for the entire SiteManager model range. We have performed many tests and can proudly declare with the release 9.5 that the SiteManager is officially clear of these vulnerabilities.

 

The firmware for SiteManager 9.5 will be available on all Hosted GateManagers on June 30. The GateManager and SiteManager firmware will also be available for download on our Knowledge Base as of June 30.