GATEWAY DEVICE, METHOD FOR COMMUNICATION, AND COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

The disclosure relates to a field device communication system including a gateway device 102, at least one control system 108, at least one field device 104, and at least one communication device 106. The gateway device 102 comprises a control system interface component 118 that is operable to provide a bidirectional communication between at the least one external control system 108 and said gateway device 102; a field device interface component 114 that is operable to provide a communication between the at least one external field device 104 and said gateway device 102; a direct data channel that is operable to exchange data between the control system interface component 118 and the field device interface component 114; a communication interface component 116 that is operable to provide a bidirectional communication between at the least one external communication device 106 and said gateway device 102; a splitting unit 120 that is connected to the communication interface component 118 and the direct data channel, wherein said splitting unit 120 is operable to bidirectionally tap into the data exchanged over the direct data channel; wherein said communication interface component 116 comprises a processing unit that is operable to process the tapped data. Processing by the processing unit may comprise at least one of validating, sorting, summarizing, aggregating, analyzing, reporting, compressing, filtering, reformatting, contextualizing, and/or classifying the data to yield a set of processed data. Processing may further comprise appending contextual metadata to the data, wherein the contextual metadata includes at least one of a date, a time, a shift, a production area, a product, a machine state, an employee identifier, a lot number, an active alarm, and/or a hierarchical organizational tag. The direct data channel may be a time critical channel 122. The splitting unit 120 may be connected to the communication interface component 116 by a non-time critical channel 124. The control system interface component 118 may comprise at least one of an EtherCAT, Ethernet/IP, PowerLink, Sercos III, Profibus, a PROFINET switch, and a PROFINET interface. The field device interface component 114 may comprise at least one 10-Link stack, a channel master, a HART, a CANopen interface, an analog voltage interface, and an analog current interface.