Digi IX40 5G edge computing industrial IoT cellular gateway is designed for Industry 4.0 use cases

Digi IX40 is a 5G edge computing industrial IoT cellular router solution designed for Industry 4.0 use cases such as advanced robotics, predictive maintenance, asset monitoring, industrial automation, and smart manufacturing.

The IIoT gateway is based on an NXP i.MX 8M Plus Arm processor running a custom Linux distribution, and besides 5G and 4G LTE cellular connectivity, offers gigabit Ethernet networking with 6 RJ45 and SFP ports, GNSS for geolocation and time, as well as digital and analog I/Os and an RS232/RS422/RS485 serial interface supporting Modbus.

Digi IX40 specifications:

SoC – NXP i.MX 8M Plus Arm Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.6 GHz with 2.3 TOPS NPU
System Memory – 1GB RAM
Storage – 8GB eMMC flash
Wireless
- Cellular
  - IX40-05
    - 5G NSA, 5G SA, 4G LTE-ADVANCED PRO CAT 19
    - 5G NR bands – n1, n2, n3, n5, n7, n8, n12, n13, n14, n18, n20, n25, n26, n28, n29, n30, n38, n40, n41, n48, n66, n71, n75, n76, n77, n78, n79;
    - 4G LTE-Advanced Pro bands – B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B7, B8, B12, B13, B14 FirstNet, B17, B20, B25, B26, B28, B29, B30, B32, B38, B40, B41, B42, B43, B46, B48, B66, B71;
    - 3G bands – B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, B8, B19
  - IX40-04:
    - 4G LTE-ADVANCED PRO CAT 12, 3G HSPA+
    - 4G LTE-Advanced Pro bands – B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B7, B8, B12, B13, B14, B17, B18, B19, B20, B25, B26, B28, B29, B30, B38, B39, B40, B41, B42, B43, B48, B66, B71;
    - 3G bands – B1, B2, B4, B5, B6, B8, B9, B19
  - Antenna – 2x or 4x 50 Ω SMA antenna connectors
  - 2x Nano-SIM (4FF) holders with cover plate
  - Digi SureLink, VRRP+, and dual SIMs for resilient cellular connectivity
- GNSS
  - GPS Gen 9 with band L1 LNA for passive antenna use
  - Upper L-band: GPS L1; Glonass G1; Beidou B1; Galileo E1
  - Antenna
    - IX40-04 – supports passive GNSS antennas rated at 1.5 to 3 dBi only
    - IX40-05 – supports passive GNSS antennas rated at 1.5 to 3 dBi or active antennas with 7.5 to 26 dB gain
    - 50 Ω SMA antenna connector
  - Protocol – NMEA 4.11 and TAIP
Wired networking
- 4x Gigabit Ethernet RJ-45 port configurable as WAN or LAN
- 2x Gigabit capable SFP sockets
Serial – RS-232/422/485 DB-9 male connector (Modbus support)
I/O – 2x Digital input/outputs; 2x analog inputs (0 – 10 V; 4 – 20 mA; 12-bit resolution)
Security – FIPS 140-2 validation for encryption of sensitive data
Misc – Power, WWAN, Ethernet (link, activity) LED indicators
Power Supply – 12 to 30 VDC via screw-down terminal block
Power Consumption – 4.5 Watts (light traffic), 8 Watts (peak data), 3.5 Watts (idle traffic)
Dimensions – 234 x 154 x 41 mm (rugged enclosure with DIN rail and shelf mounting options)
Weight – 1.14 kg
Temperature Range – Operating: −30°C to 70°C; storage: −40°C to 85°C
Relatively Humidity – 0% to 95% (non-condensing) at 25°C
IP rating – IP30
Approvals
- Cellular – PTCRB, AT&T, FirstNet Capable, T-Mobile, Verizon (others may be added in the future)
- Safety – IEC 62368-1, CB scheme
- Emissions – FCC Part 15 Subpart B, ISED, CE, RED, UKCA

It’s quite a different beast than the earlier, more compact Digi IX30 cellular industrial router, but the Digi IX40 runs the same Digi Accelerated Linux operating system (DAL OS) with license-free enterprise software for VPN, firewall, logging, and authentication.

The gateways can be managed locally through a webUI or client (SSH, serial) or remotely using the company’s cloud-based Digi Remote Manager (aka Digi RM), SNMP v1/v2c/v3, or SMS. Digi International also lists some management tools such as SFTP, SCP, a protocol analyzer with PCAP for Wireshark, and event logging with Syslog, which typically ships with most Linux distributions…

Digi IX40 smart manufacturing use case — Smart manufacturing use case with the DIgi IX40 gateway

Some of the use cases include industrial automation and control, predictive maintenance, 5G cellular and fiber failover, real-time monitoring and control for utilities, Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS), Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), oil field drilling monitoring, and digital signage and traffic management for smart cities.

The Digi IX40-05 gateway with 5G cellular connectivity is available now, and the Digi IX40-04 with 4G LTE only is shown as coming soon. As one would expect, pricing for this type of hardware is not made public. Further information may be found on the product page and in the press release.

Thanks to TLS for the tip.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.