Wireless connectivity

A fundamental part of any IoT/ IIoT device is wireless communications – its how our sensors communicate with the outside world.

The best wireless solution is not just the one with the biggest wireless range but the one that offers seamless integration, is cost optimised and requires a minimal amount of time to installation.

We started with a blank piece of paper and assessed wireless solutions against the following challenge statements:

• How can we ensure sufficient wireless range to cover a complete asset to minimise the number of wireless Gateways. Ideally there should be a maximum of one wireless gateway per wind turbine.
• How can we ensure that the wireless communications fit within the power constraints of miniature batteries (minimising peak current and active time)
• How can we integrate the data into Tablets and other handheld readers typically used.

The solution

We utilise a LoRa physical layer with a custom application running over the top.

We don’t use an off the shelf module. We found them all to be too large, too expensive, not power optimised and sometimes of limited supply so we designed custom hardware, from the bottom up.

Our solutions offers more than a 1km wireless range, whilst still being powered from an internal miniature battery with 15 years battery life. It seamlessly integrates into our ecosystem:

• For remote monitoring. We integrate the LoRa communications directly into our InterBolt Gateway for remote monitoring.
• For on-site monitoring. We have developed the first commercially available LoRa enabled ruggedised tablet – the InterBolt Tablet. This Tablet has a built in LoRa module for direct communications with InterBolts. If customers want to use their existing Tablet, we supply a simple and low cost external bridge (LoRa to BLE converter).

How do we compare:

Other solutions primarily use two different approaches:

-????????? Bluetooth. Bluetooth is great for integrating into phones and Tablets and is very low power, but it is not designed for long range wireless communications. Bluetooth is often limited to 20-50m of wireless distance in open air and typically less than half this in harsh operating conditions. This means that to cover a complete wind turbine, you would need 3-5 Gateways. Each one needing a separate power source and connection to the internet. This results in a system that is not cost efficient or quick to install.

-????????? LoRaWAN. LoRaWAN is great for using existing networks but it places fundamental restrictions on the LoRa physical layer settings you can use and add unnecessary overhead to the communications which consumes additional power.