ESTeem’s industrial wireless radios are engineered to meet a wide array of applications.
Baked-in Versatility
Whether you need serial or Ethernet, narrowband or wide band, licensed or unlicensed, mobile or stationary, we have a wireless radio that will meet your needs. Our industrial-hardened radios are designed for a range of applications that present specific challenges when it comes to distance, accessibility and mobility. These applications run the gamut, from agriculture to factories, mining, oil and gas, public safety and much more.
That versatility extends to modes of operation. Every ESTeem radio can operate in three different modes, depending on an application’s requirements.
Bridge Mode
Bridge mode is the most basic of the three. Everything that happens on the wired and wireless ends of the network is shared back and forth over bridge mode. The radios in a network that uses bridge mode normally operate on one IP address and do not manipulate the data in any way.
Bridge mode works well for networks that are isolated or smaller in size. Networks with low traffic also often are a good fit for this mode of operation.
Industrial control applications are an example of where bridge mode works best. Take, for instance, a municipal wastewater network that incorporates one central treatment plant that gathers information from all the tanks and pumps in the wastewater district. That’s an isolated network where bridge mode would work well.
Router Mode
Bridge mode doesn’t work as well when a radio is incorporated in a high-traffic network, because the larger amount of traffic can overwhelm wireless radios. Router mode can be a good solution for these applications. In router mode, the radios limit the traffic that is passed through them based on IP address. Traffic can still travel back and forth between the wired and wireless sides of the network but only from the designated IP addresses.
As an example of a typical router mode application, let’s go back to the wastewater system described above and plug the system into the city’s larger network. In bridge mode, the traffic from the larger network would overwhelm the radios. But using router mode to connect the wastewater system to the larger network allows the radios to selectively pass only certain information between the two networks, allowing both to operate at maximum efficiency.
Masquerade Mode
While both bridge and router modes allow traffic to pass back and forth from the wired to the wireless sides of the network, there are some applications where traffic needs to be limited to only one direction. These applications require masquerade mode, which essentially acts as a firewall, preventing access to the network while still allowing it to share certain information.
As an example, imagine a steel plant where a control system networks four machines together. Once a day, the system pushes the information collected from the four machines to the plant’s corporate communication network. While it’s important that the information from the system be shared with the corporate network, it’s equally important that the corporate network not be able to communicate with or control the four machines. Masquerade mode allows the information to be shared while blocking any communication from the larger network to the control system.
Adaptable to Meet Your Needs
Every ESTeem wireless radio is able to operate in all three modes, providing a broad flexibility to achieve your application’s specific goals.
Contact us today for the industrial wireless radios that meet your requirements.