Panasonic Industry & INSYS icom Develop Joint Solution for 2G Migration

Panasonic Industry and INSYS icom have established a cooperative partnership to deploy a joint retrofit solution for network migration. The collaboration integrates the FP-I4C communication controller with industrial routing technology to support digital infrastructure in the water and environmental sectors.

Application and Industrial Context
The transition targets long-life installations within critical infrastructures, specifically in the water and environmental industries, as well as machine-to-machine and industrial automation environments. These sectors depend on continuous connectivity for monitoring and process control, operating communication units that typically remain deployed for extended periods without hardware modifications.

Addressing the Network Migration Challenge
With the planned termination of 2G mobile networks to allocate frequencies for LTE and 5G technologies, operators face potential communication outages for devices relying solely on GSM standards. Panasonic Industry and INSYS icom combined their technical expertise to provide a scalable migration path that integrates existing serially connected controllers into modern communication networks. This cooperation was required to bypass the operational disruption and high capital expenditure associated with a complete system replacement.

System Architecture and Responsibilities
The technical solution relies on the Panasonic Industry FP-I4C communication controller operating in tandem with INSYS icom industrial routers and gateways. Panasonic Industry provides the communication controller to interface with legacy infrastructure, enabling functionalities such as remote maintenance, database connectivity, and web-based visualization. INSYS icom supplies the routing hardware, which manages secure data transmission over LTE and 5G mobile communication standards. The routers are engineered for integration with SCADA and cloud platforms, utilizing hardened operating systems and flexible virtual private network architectures to maintain high connection stability and redundancy.

Implementation and Infrastructure Integration
The integrated retrofit system was demonstrated at the IFAT trade show (May 13-17, 2024, in Munich, Germany) to display the modernization process for existing installations. The strategy extends the operational lifecycle of legacy hardware by deploying the controllers and routers directly into current industrial setups. This configuration supports both point-to-point and multi-point communication structures, maintaining process stability and allowing operators to manage distributed infrastructures remotely.

Operational Impact and Security
By upgrading to modern mobile communication protocols, facility operators achieve higher data bandwidth and lower transmission latency. The implementation provides a standardized method for industrial data integration, enhancing overall operational reliability.

Edited by Natania Lyngdoh, Induportals editor, assisted by AI.

www.industry.panasonic.com