How to make your analogue sensors smart

There are great amounts of measuring probes in operations in industrial environments today. These probes have to be manually controlled to take measurements. The SCOREwater project on the other hand, aims at automating this process. The backbone of the measurements in Gothenburg has been Talkpool’s OY1400 LoRaWAN Probe converter. This is a smart, off-the shelf device, which not only powers and activates external analogue probes from 0-10V or 4-20mA, but also transmits the measured data over the internet, using the LoRaWAN data communications protocol.

LoRaWAN is an innovative data protocol that has been designed specifically for Internet of Things (IoT) applications. It enables the wireless transmission of data over the internet, with a very long range, for example up to 1-3 kilometers in urban environments. As a consequence, the measurement devices can be installed in remote areas, such as the inside of a stormwater well or in the middle of a river, and still successfully report measurements to the internet, in real-time. This has allowed for the installation of measurement devices in challenging conditions, in order to collect stormwater data.

How can your organization benefit from this innovation and connect, digitize and automate its processes? The network infrastructure is, in most countries, already readily available. To create a complete solution, you must also have high quality measuring probes for the parameters that you would like to measure. This can be anything like a temperature-, turbidity-, pH-, vibration or other kind of probe, the opportunities are endless. Such probe can then easily be connected over the LoRaWAN network using Talkpool’s OY1400 LoRaWAN Probe converter. Different probes have different start-up time requirements, and thereby different power requirements. As a result, the right trade-off needs to be made between battery life (alternatively wired power) and measuring capabilities. The advantage is a relatively low cost and ease of installation, allowing for the deployment of mass volumes of sensor probes.