smart, automatic doors

The Swiss company record Group is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of automatic door systems. With Microtronics, valuable experience was gained with regard to the Internet of Things and an initial proof of concept was created.

The focus was on rapid implementation in order to generate experience under real conditions according to the “learning by doing” principle. Because even if everything is technically possible, “Because we can” is not sufficient justification for an IoT project. Measuring every second and monitoring the condition of the door live is not a challenge from a technical point of view. But what for?

Workshops were held internally and with customers, and a discussion was opened about the potential of the Internet of Things. This communication and proof of concept raised completely new questions at the record Group. For example, security plays a central role for doors that are accessible via the internet. It is unthinkable if the door could be opened remotely by unauthorised persons.

Therefore, a two-step process has been provided for predictive and remote maintenance applications. Only after confirmation directly at the door are the changes made by the service technician remotely actually forwarded to the door. The monitoring platform allows the doors to be managed online without too much technical knowledge.

The end-to-end security of the Microtronics total solution is suitable for such safety-critical applications. A variety of security mechanisms are already integrated into the system architecture. Among other things, this includes memory-to-memory communication and AES 256 encryption.

The example of the record Group shows that an IoT project is also always an innovation project. A wide range of stakeholders need to be brought on board to ultimately add value, not simply collect and collate data because you can.