How can Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) best be utilized to monitor industrial assets?

The Internet of Things is revolutionizing how industries do business. The proliferation of connected devices combined with enhanced analytics will only increase the adoption and rapid growth of the IoT-enabled digital transformation. However, not all connected things have the same requirements in terms of power, range, throughput, and frequency of data. As a result, there is no one technology that solves all the challenges associated with this revolution. Many of these connected devices require long range, low power, and cost-effective connectivity. This is where Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) come in.

For many industrial customers, stranded or isolated assets are just part of the cost of doing business. In a recent interview, a CEO of one of the world’s largest energy companies estimated that over 70% of the company’s assets were isolated and not monitored. Therefore, to get data from these assets, companies much dispatch personnel to manually gather data from the field.

So how can LPWAN best be utilized to monitor industrial assets?

Last year, OleumTech launched its General-Purpose line of Sigfox-enabled products, and in February of 2018, the company announced the official launch of the Class I Division 1 product line, allowing industrial companies and municipalities to be able to gather data from these stranded assets, including in hazardous environments where there is always explosive liquids, vapors, or gases present.

The Sigfox global LPWAN is uniquely designed for IoT. By using an ultra-narrowband (UNB) technology operating in the license free frequency bands, the company is providing a scalable, high capacity network with very low energy consumption requirements. This results in improved spectral efficiency and greater receive sensitivity, leading to higher link budgets for improved coverage.

The Sigfox architecture is based on multiple base stations receiving each broadcasted and repeated message, building redundancy into the solution. The goal is to have a minimum of three Base Stations receive each message. The majority of applications are simplex (one-way) communications, meaning acknowledgments are not generated from the base station with each message received by the transmitter. Therefore, each message is broadcasted three times on three different frequencies, providing a very reliable message framework.

OleumTech Sigfox-enabled wireless transmitters
Once the message is received at the base station and authenticated via a cryptographic token, the information is forwarded to the Sifgox Cloud where message sequence numbers and timestamps are checked. All redundant messages are then de-duplicated. Customers then have the ability to access the data through a variety of methods and platforms with simplified bridges, including Amazon Web Services IoT and Microsoft Azure.

OleumTech’s Intellectual Property (IP) related to self-contained, battery-powered transmitter technology is a natural fit within the Sigfox ecosystem which is very much complimentary to OleumTech’s traditional platform offering.

For companies in pursuit of digital transformation, technology is a key element in driving the need to continually improve performance and operational efficiency. The OleumTech Sigfox-enabled product offering allows cities to become smarter, energy companies to reduce costs and optimize processes, and industry as a whole to enhance productivity, efficiency and profitability.

About the Author
Brent McAdams is the Sr. Vice President of Global Strategic Initiatives for OleumTech Corporation and leads the company’s OEM efforts as well as developing strategic partnerships to deliver a global IoT strategy, including edge-to-enterprise solutions. Mr. McAdams has appeared in a number of publications, including Pipeline & Gas Journal, Control Engineering, ISA InTech Magazine, and Plant Engineering as well as being a featured speaker at industry events around the world.

About OleumTech

OleumTech Corporation is a leading manufacturer of industrial automation systems that represents the new paradigm of remote monitoring and control for industries such as Oil & Gas, Refining, Petro-Chemical, Utilities and Water/Wastewater. With over 350,000 nodes and 35,000 networks deployed, the patented system eliminates costs associated with running cables and digging trenches with the use of its wireless tank monitoring, wellhead monitoring and peer-to-peer oilfield process automation solutions. Forming the foundation of a highly scalable, peer-to-peer wireless infrastructure, the OleumTech Wireless Systems enables “last mile” connectivity in any wireless SCADA and telemetry application.

OleumTech Sigfox-enabled

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