The basic requirement for predictive maintenance is continuous remote monitoring. Stable internet connection against unexpected expenses.
WHAT IS THE BLOG ABOUT?
- REMOTE MONITORING ON THE WATER
- STABLE INTERNET ALSO NEAR THE COAST
- A SIMPLE SOLUTION: CPE ANTENNA & INDUSTRIAL ROUTER
Reliable internet connectivity can be the focus in countless services. Expensive equipments, special vehicles, or even remote monitoring systems for public service ferries are no exception. In today’s world – thanks to the rapidly developing mobile communication – online monitoring, i.e. the continuous extraction and use of telemetry data, for example for predictive maintenance purposes, is playing an increasingly important role. Problems that cause major downtime not only interrupt the service provided by the equipment or vehicle, but also entail high costs. IoT-based monitoring systems are simple solutions, yet they play a huge role in reducing system operation costs and increasing reliability.
REMOTE MONITORING ON THE WATER
Imagine a ferry system that transports thousands of people, hundreds of cars, and a lot of essential goods between coasts every day. Continuous remote monitoring and predictive maintenance can ensure that there are no service interruptions, no accidental situations that lead to accidents, and last but not least, the operator needs fewer spare ferries.
STABLE INTERNET ALSO NEAR THE COAST
A modern remote monitoring system collects as much information as possible about the equipment, for example vibration and temperature data in the case of a ferry. For proper control, it is essential that these telemetries are always available. And this requires a stable internet connection. A mobile communication package with high gain antenna can perform well on a ferry, which is optimized for near-shore application, thus reliably handling changes in transmitter towers, and which has automatic failover in the event of a forced change of service provider. In the case of ferries, this may be especially necessary because the strength of the signals changes as you move away from the shore, and it is not certain that there is the same service provider on the other side.
A SIMPLE SOLUTION: CPE ANTENNA & INDUSTRIAL ROUTER
To operate a ferry’s remote monitoring system, a marine antenna and a 4G/5G industrial router using multiple SIMs are sufficient.
The ideal solution could be a Poynting marine CPE antenna and Teltonika’s durable 4×4 MIMO routers, which can withstand temperature loads in winter and summer even when installed in an outdoor antenna enclosure.
In our specific example, we used the following internet connectivity devices:
- POYNTING SWIRL-4-CPE X-Polarised, Omni-Directional 5G/LTE, GPS Multi MIMO CPE Antenna
- TELTONIKA RUTX50 Industrial 5G Dual-SIM Multi-Network Router
The antenna system can be mounted on the upper deck of the ferry and connected to an industrial gateway that communicates with the sensors via a BT connection. The sensors continuously provide telemetry data to the gateway connected via Ethernet, which forwards the data to the router, which then sends it to the cloud server via Modbus TCP or MQTT protocol. From there, the data is available for dashboard and smartphone information, automated alarms and expert analysis.
Of course, this solution example can be applied to rail and road transport vehicles, refrigerated trucks and automated agricultural machinery. Countless similar application possibilities are enabled by the large number of available antenna and modem combinations.
Our engineers can provide you with further information. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
SWIRL-4-CPE is the aluminum-based accessory socket version of the Swirl antenna family, which includes four cross-polarized cellular antennas that cover a wide range of LTE and 5G frequency bands from 617 to 6000 MHz.
The RUTX50 is a robust industrial 5G router featuring 5x Gigabit Ethernet ports, WiFi, Dual-SIM, GPS, high-performance CPU and RutOS software for advanced networking solutions.
