Supporting Communication of Medical Ventilators with Serial Gateways

Digitalization is increasingly making its way into hospitals, facilitating the day-to-day work of physicians and the medical personnel and helping to prevent human errors, i.e., in documentation, medication dosing, and when it comes to ensuring a stable communication of medical devices such as life-saving ventilators.

To meet the rising demand for such sophisticated medical ventilators, medical companies are partnering with various manufacturers to ramp up production of these life-saving devices. Since a range of manufacturers are producing the ventilators, they do not follow a uniform design and component layout. However, ventilators must be able to communicate with each other and connect to hospital networks for patient monitoring.

With numerous controllers/HMIs and networks all needing to communicate together, an intermediary device is required. This is where the serial gateways (DeviceMasters®) from Pepperl+Fuchs can help. The family of serial-to-Ethernet converters and industrial gateways is designed to convert serial and Ethernet data from field devices to TCP/IP and industrial Ethernet protocols like EtherNet/IP, PROFINET, and MODBUS TCP. With web-based configuration, example programs, and windows-based management application PortVison®, serial gateways deliver near plug-and-play industrial connectivity.

A serial gateway is the perfect tool for bringing together the systems and platforms needed to support the manufacture of ventilators and other medical devices. With an array of available serial and Ethernet conversion capabilities, it can not only facilitate communication between the various ventilator designs, but it can also serve as a central management tool for connecting them to hospital networks.

• Serial gateways provide EtherNet/IP, MODBUS TCP, MODBUS RTU/ASCII, and PROFINET connectivity to a wide range of devices
• Highly advanced raw/ASCII device interface functionality simplifies PLC programming and ensures robust operation
• DualConnectPlus™ technology simultaneously connects both serial and Ethernet TCP/IP devices to PLCs and/or applications