Industrial wireless serial device servers have bridge mode and Wi-Fi for easy setup

Product Exclusive: Antaira Technologies introduces new advanced industrial wireless serial device servers. The new Antaira STW-600C series provides serial to wireless Networking and more advanced technologies, such as bridge mode and Wi-Fi direct.

July 17, 2014

Antaira Technologies, a developer of industrial networking and device connectivity solutions for harsh environment applications, announced the new advanced Antaira Industrial Wireless Serial Device Servers. The new Antaira STW-600C series provides serial to wireless networking and more advanced technologies, such as bridge mode and Wi-Fi direct.

The STW-611C and STW-612C have an IP50 compact DIN-rail mount design, with wall mount support. The wireless serial device servers are built to withstand industrial networking hazards like shock, drop, vibration, electromagnetic interference (EMI) and temperature extremes. This series provides option models for one or two RS232/422/485 (software selectable) serial ports, and one port of 10/100Tx Ethernet LAN port. It is IEEE 802.11b/g/n compliant with 2.4 GHz band, with high wireless security in WPA/WPA2/AES, and 802.1x authentication. It secures asynchronous RS232, RS485 or RS422 serial data transmissions over wireless at speeds up to 921.6 Kbps.

The STW-600C series provides web console or a Microsoft Windows utility for device configuration, and allows users to have different operation mode support, such as virtual COM, TCP/UDP server/client, and the tunneling (pair connection) solutions. More on the new advanced technologies follows. 

Bridge mode

Antaira’s STW-600C series bridge mode allows users to establish three communication paths within one unit, as shown in figure 2:

  • Serial-to-wireless communication path
  • Serial-to-Ethernet communication path
  • Ethernet-to-wireless communication path.

This allows users to have any serial or Ethernet device link to the wireless network and form a three-way communication solution. It helps to improve the devices’ networking efficiency, and reduces cost because an additional switch is not required.

Wi-Fi direct

The Antaira STW-600C series adopted the WPS Technology to provide a Wi-Fi Direct EZ setup solution for point-to-point wireless networking, as shown in Figure 3.

– By only pressing each of the STW-600C units’ front "push button" for a few seconds, it automatically builds a "serial-auto link" within the STW-600C units and allows both connected serial devices to establish communication.

– It includes hassle free for easy setup; no PC software setup is required.

The Wi-Fi Direct EZ setup will benefit a number of field engineers for device to device wireless communication Applications because it requires no PC or laptop software setup in the field site.

– Edited by Mark T. Hoske, content manager, CFE Media, Control Engineering, mhoske@cfemedia.com.

ONLINE extra

This is a Product Exclusive announcement in the Control Engineering North American July 2014 print and digital editions. For more products, see www.controleng.com/products