Wireless Communications are certainly not new to Industrial applications. Technologies and standards abound, including Zigbee, wirelessHART, ISA100 and 6LoWPAN.
For ‘mainstream’ applications, such as process plant SCADA systems, a choice of an appropriate standard allows interoperability, freedom of choice of hardware vendors and tried and tested robust protocols. However, there remain many, many applications where any of these standards fall short of the requirements.
In much the same way as consumer markets have a love-hate affair with standards, so too is the choice complex in Industrial markets.Situations in which low power (i.e. maintenance free, “set and forget”), low cost (very high deployment volumes), or specific system demands such as long range, high interference and difficult RF environments demand custom solutions build with RFOS.
In the Commercial worlds of retail, utilities, services, agriculture, construction, transport, healthcare, professional and so on, the case for an optimized custom solution becomes even stronger.
As the cost and ease of implementing wireless continues to drop and new system approaches open up, the number of possible new applications is limited only imagination, for example:
- sensors on off highway vehiclese.g. load monitoring / balancing, stabilizer or tool position, proximity sensing, actuator encoders, condition monitors for hydraulics, motors, structures
- pipeline monitoringe.g. condition monitoring, leak detection, security and theft, flow rates, alignment
- down-hole sensinge.g. gas well water levels, pressures, gas sensors
- tool inventory managementlocation, integrity and fitness for use, configuration, commissioning
- irrigation systemscontrol, sensing, system optimization, coverage
- security systemsremote observation, network intelligence, sensor arrays, drop and forget, event triggering, multi-data fusion
Venture most prolific application space has historically been industrial and commercial, and you can see some case studies of our work here: Industrial & Commercial Case Studies.
Examples of Venture’s industrial and commercial applications include
- Equipment in the field monitoring, such as water, mining
- Retail applications – signage and information systems
- Process sensors
- Military communications
- Lighting control and load balancing
- Hand washing monitoring