Are you finding yourself waiting on a Raspberry Pi or sensors for a new design? You're not alone - because of labor shortages, shipping challenges and other cascading factors, some electronic components now have lead times of over 52 weeks! Does your project have to come to a grinding halt? Absolutely not, there is much you can do while you wait.
Sensors are key to any IoT project and typically output a formatted data stream. For example, a tachometer will output the speed of a rotating mechanism, or a door sensor will send open or closed messages. A more complex machine may have dozens of sensors, but the output format will be well defined. Because of this, simulating the output of machines and sensors can be done in software.
For many applications, there is no need to invest in an expensive simulation environment. Machinechat’s JEDI Pro is a downloadable software application that allows you to easily collect, visualize and analyze data. In the absence of data from hardware sensors or equipment, you can use JEDI Pro's virtual sensors to simulate the output of hardware sensors that may be out of stock. Data from virtual sensors comes into the system just like ‘real’ sensor data and can be stored, visualized, analyzed by rules, and acted upon.
To create a virtual sensor in Machinechat JEDI Pro, you need a spreadsheet of the data that will be sent by the virtual sensor. This can include numeric, text, or binary information. You can create multiple virtual sensors each with their own dataset and configure how often the data is sent.
Machinechat JEDI Pro and its virtual sensor feature allows you to build proof-of-concepts of operational data and IoT projects quickly and avoid being stalled due to sensor or other hardware component shortages.