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Manufacturing is a pillar of innovation and growth for Europe, providing over 32 million jobs and 16% of GDP; but outdated machinery and unplanned downtime can cause significant losses for companies and employees. To reclaim lost productivity and strengthen competitiveness, the European Commission asked innovators to improve industrial sustainability and unlock the potential of digital connectivity. A recently launched European project is looking to provide the solutions and advanticsys is proud to be part of it.

We all slow down over time. Joints start to creak, tasks seem harder and we begin to make mistakes… well it is the same for the machinery that produce the goods and equipment that make today’s world possible. So what to do? Leaving aging and underperforming machinery idle and neglected is costly. Replacement is often very expensive and also carries a large environmental footprint thanks to raw materials, production and transportation.

But imagine if manufacturing machinery could not only find the secret to their youth again – but integrate new digital capabilities to make them highly productive and effective in a new era.

A group of researchers and industries from nine countries recently launched the RECLAIM manufacturing project to do just this. We hope to benefit the environment and the economy with new recycle and reuse techniques to reduce obsolescence and prove the advantages of high-tech refurbishment.

The project will focus on harnessing digital analytics, the Internet of Things (IoT) and circular economy strategies to improve predictive maintenance and upgrade legacy machines. Known as digital retrofitting, it could be key to staying one step ahead of possible disruption and production failures.

Follow our progress @Reclaim_FoF or the project’s LinkedIn page

A new Industrial IoT gateway called MPC-730 has just released by ADVANTICSYS. It completes our portfolio by adding Wireless M-Bus concentrating capabilities empowering customer to collect data from up to 50 meters operating on either 868 or 433 MHz bands.

Similarly to our previously existing IIoT gateways, the new MPC-730 open standard-based design allow for transfer and communication of data over an Intranet or Internet communicating directly with HMI, SCADA or BMS applications by making use of Modbus RTU/TCP, FTP or Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocols, being perfectly suitable for Industry 4.0, M2M and IIoT applications.

More info can be found at MPC-730 product page.

The Center for Advanced Studies in Fruticulture (CEAF) is a research center located in the O’Higgins Region, in central Chile, whose objective is to improve the scientific and technological competitiveness of the region through solutions and technological innovations that improve productivity of key fruit species.

In partnership with our subsidiary company Epssilon Networks, established in Chile since 2011, we have recently implemented a Controlled-Environment Agriculture solution with professional LED lighting for plant growth provided by our partner Valoya, with carefully selected lighting spectra for maximum crop performance. This system has been deployed inside a growth chamber, isolated from outdoor ambient variables, thus allowing the cultivation of crops under controlled conditions.

This system, like all that we deploy in this market, can be controlled and regulated through the use of the UCM-316 controller, capable of performing scheduled controlled actions or ad-hoc and monitored by our wireless temperature, humidity and CO2 sensor, IAQM, through the Concordia Cloud platform, where data is sent in real time and from where notifiable events are generated by email.

By using this technology, it is expected to achieve energy savings of 40% to 50% compared to traditional sodium lighting systems, and under certain conditions could be more than 60%. The technology will also help reduce growth times by approximately 22%, while generating more vigorous plants. As an example, crops that usually take 12 weeks under traditional fluorescent or sodium lighting systems, would take only 9 weeks on average to reach a similar and even better development stage than with traditional systems, and only 50 % of energy consumption. In this way, it is possible to increase the number of productive cycles in a given period of time, by using the same infrastructure.

Typical Controlled-environment agriculture solution

More information about our Smart Agriculture solutions can be found here.

According to the World Health Organization, air pollution is causing around 467,000 premature deaths in Europe every year. Cities around the world are committed to improving air quality by drastically reducing the main contributor: road traffic. In most of the cases, drastic measures are being taken by capitals like London, Paris or Madrid forbidding private cars usage on given days or during seasons. However, this is not enough. With powerful technology-enabled tools, cities can improve their decision-making process.One example is the successful project developed in Chester City (United Kingdom), where Advanticsys Internet of Things technology has been used to reduce air pollution caused through traffic congestion by linking air quality measurements to a local authority’s traffic management control system. The project aimed to test the feasibility of developing an integrated data platform for Chester city centre. The focus was on linking a novel air quality network of low cost wireless sensors with the traffic management within the city centre to alleviate air pollution ‘hot spots’ caused by queuing traffic.

Advanticsys provided a scalable low-cost wireless sensor network which included air quality sensing units measuring key traffic pollutants: nitric oxide (NO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and particulate matter (PM).

The end-to-end solution provided by Advanticsys is completed with the Concordia Cloud platform, where the data from sensing units are being sent in real time. The platform also includes events notification by email.Dr Hannah Newton, the project lead, from UK-based company C-Tech Innovation said: “We have installed air quality sensors in the Cheshire West and Cheshire (CWAC) air quality management area for comparison alongside the CWAC pollution analysers. These sensor units are mounted to the lamp posts in the area and communicate over the mobile network. The project concept is to create air quality sensors that can be linked to a city’s traffic management control system (traffic lights, signage etc.) to help alleviate hotspots of pollution caused by heavy traffic.”

More information about our Air Quality and Environmental monitoring solutions can be found here.

Nowadays, it is increasingly important that public buildings are as energy efficient as possible. This is a not only a global trend for new buildings but also for existing ones. One such building is the St Teilo’s High School in Cardiff, Wales. Built in 2014 to BREEAM Excellence, the building already has a state of the art building management system. However, having so many meters/sensors monitored made it hard sometimes to locate what the problem was. Thus, an additional heating monitoring solution was required to simplify where heat was dispersed – creating heating zones. This required the installation of heat meters in 9 locations, 2 of them in the Ground floor and 7 in the First floor. Advanticsys fully wireless solution supporting M-Bus and Modbus RTU / TCP was chosen by the School and Cardiff Council due to the non-intrusive nature of the installation, with little preparatory work needed resulting in a cost reduction compared to other wired alternatives. The solution included the following equipment:

Wireless M-Bus T1 Heat meters. Being battery-operated, they were the best option to avoid power wires deployment. They included 2 PT500 temperature sensors.
DM-108 wireless bridges. Supporting both Wireless M-Bus and Modbus RTU, they provide seamless connectivity between heat meters and data concentrators.
MPC-333 data concentrators. They logged and sent heat meters data to the cloud platform in 15 minutes intervals using FTP.

Once every device is properly configured put in place, via the Concordia Cloud platform, the user can access each meters data, develop customized dashboards and be able to download data for further analysis. The platform also includes events notification by email. The data collected on a local FTP server at the school, and sent to a central Council FTP from the MPC-333 data concentrators. Sending data to multiple FTPs is another useful feature of the wireless solution.

Mathew Preece, Energy Projects Manager at Cardiff Council, states that “using Advanticsys wireless communication bridges and data collectors allowed work to be carried out with less disruption to the school (no need for wires). It is early days for the project, but it is envisaged that this high level overview of heating the school via the zones created by the heat meters will allow the facility manager to optimise his time and prioritise his work load based on sections of the school that are causing problems from overheating.”

More information about our building management solutions can be found here.

Newer Posts

Older Posts

The RECLAIM Project: Can European manufacturing industries boost competitiveness and productivity by embracing the circular economy?

New IIoT-enabled Wireless M-Bus concentrator released

New controlled-environment agriculture solution in Chile enables up to 50% energy saving

Air Quality Monitoring solution contributes to reduce traffic pollution in Chester, UK

A fully wireless solution maximizes energy savings and comfort in a school in Wales, UK

A digital transformation success: Industry 4.0 predictive maintenance applied to shipyards

A use case of extensive monitoring of a poultry production plant in Greece

New wireless monitoring project of a 75MWp solar plant in India delivered

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