Wireless telemetry in plants is a necessity for the data acquisition requirements of modern process efficiency and compliance monitoring. However, cabling costs often push the economic viability of such data acquisition projects onto the list of pending plant capex. The benefit of having the data is undeniable, but often too expensive to implement. Wireless communications provide a cost-effective solution, and the technology is improving all the time.
The wireless spectrum is controlled, requiring a licence to use a specified frequency and transmitter power. However, licence-free bands have been allocated worldwide to cater for wireless equipment. These bands allow vendors to supply devices subject to rules on power and duty cycles, ensuring the sharing of these bands by different equipment.
Wireless licence-free bands are extremely attractive for cable saving in industrial plants. WiFi can be used for very short-range applications and is free to use in the 2,4 GHz band, most commonly. Where more range is required, other licence-free bands like 868 MHz are employed for data transmission. These vary from country to country as legislated for the radio spectrum and are power restricted, usually in the mW range. Distances of up to 20 km are not uncommon with these low power transceivers and the Omniflex Teleterm range offers compliant frequency options to suit the global market.
Benefits include:
• Programmable IEC61131.
• Local and remote control.
• Ethernet integration standard.
• Mixed analog and digital signal on a single RTU.
• HMI integration.
• Peer to peer for better reliability (no master).
• Channel selection options.
• SD logging.
For more information contact Ian Loudon, Omniflex Remote Monitoring Specialists, +27 31 207 7466, [email protected], www.omniflex.com
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