OMNEX TRUSTED WIRELESS™ I/O A COST EFFECTIVE SOLUTION FOR STEEL MANUFACTURING PLANT

Problem

The instrumentation engineers at a large Chicago steel manufacturing plant were faced with a monitoring dilemma: how to get a one analog signal from their tin mill to a control room just under a thousand feet away. Not a simple task, since the two were connected by a maze of physical obstructions -– moving overhead equipment, pipes, beams, racks, and worse, plant bays separated by steel walls. Installing cable and conduit to send the signal to monitor equipment was going to be terribly expensive and time consuming.

OMNEX Trusted Wireless™ Solution

Convinced they had a quick, inexpensive and reliable solution to the problem, OMNEX distributors arranged a demonstration to show how a wireless frequency hopping monitor and control system -- in this case OMNEX’s Trusted Wireless™ RAD-ISM-900-SET-UD was the ideal solution for a complex industrial environment.

To replicate a real-world data-transfer occurrence, a wireless transmitter was positioned atop a six-foot step ladder in a fenced equipment area outside the control room where it could bounce its signal in and through the steel bays. Then, the OMNEX distributor, receiver in hand, made his way around the plant’s labyrinth of machinery and steel towards the location of the analog signal in the tin mill. Along the way, he highlighted how the signal on the receiver held strong as he moved, remaining above threshold at each step. In fact, upon arrival at the tin mill (and proposed monitoring station), the signal was as robust as it was when they began at the place of transmission. Needless to say, the RAD-ISM-900-SET-UD was installed immediately at a significant cost-savings to wires, and soon after the same engineering group ordered another to solve a similar problem in the building.

Advantage

At first glance, it appeared there were too many obstructions in this harsh industrial environment to allow a 1 Watt spread spectrum radio to penetrate the distance and reliably achieve significant transmission. On the contrary, it is in just this kind of environment that FHSS solutions thrive.

The frequency hopping RAD-ISM-900-SET-UD takes advantage of the industrial maze by hopping – jumping frequencies, penetrating and bouncing off walls, and bouncing through openings and along ductwork to efficiently and reliably find its way from transmitter to receiver. Nulled signals on certain frequencies are not a concern, as the fail-safe nature of the system ensures signals are picked up on sister frequencies instantaneously (within 20 milliseconds) to guarantee real-time data transfer in mission critical environments.