Bitstream Edge Serial Device Server Industrial Serial-to-IP Server for Legacy RS-232 RS-422 RS-485 Equipment Integration in Critical IP Networks

The Bitstream Edge Serial Device Server is the device server designed for the defense or energy systems integrator who needs to connect to the IP network a control or communications equipment with RS-232 serial interface manufactured in the nineties — a Codan HF radio, a SCADA telemetry decoder, a precision GNSS receiver — without replacing the equipment because the qualification and certification process for new equipment takes two years and the replacement budget is not in the current fiscal cycle.

The Virtual COM Port mode installs a driver on the Windows or Linux application server that makes the remote equipment's serial port appear as a local COM port — COM7, COM8 — for the existing application software, so the control or monitoring application continues sending AT commands to the modem or proprietary commands to the radio exactly as if the serial cable were still connected, without any modification to the application software and without operators perceiving any difference in system behavior.

The Modbus TCP/RTU gateway translates in real time between the Modbus TCP protocol used by the SCADA supervision system and the Modbus RTU protocol used by PLCs and RTUs in the field connected via RS-485, supporting up to 247 Modbus slaves on the RS-485 bus and conversion response time under 1 ms that introduces no perceptible latency in the automation control cycles of the substation.