Three Internet of Things (IoT) companies '” Advantech B+B SmartWorx, Connect2 Systems and DevicePilot '” have demonstrated what they say is the first end-to-end IoT ecosystem designed with re-usable infrastructure and open industry standards for industrial and commercial applications at scale. It provides automatic remote monitoring and management of industrial ultra-low power IoT sensor devices using constrained wireless networks and open IoT standards developed by the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) and Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
The demonstration used Wzzard wireless sensor nodes from Advantech B+B SmartWorx and inclinometer wireless sensor nodes from Connect2 Systems.
According to the participants, the demonstration, at the recent Internet of Things Thames Valley Meetup in the UK, 'showed the benefits of true interoperability, extensibility and reuse from using industry standards including: 802.15.4e for the air interface; 6LoWPAN - IPv6 over low power wireless personal area networks; IETF CoAP for a RESTful API; OMA Lightweight M2M (LWM2M) device management standard; Internet Protocol for the transport to the cloud.
The automatic monitoring and management of the wireless sensor nodes was performed using DevicePilot universal cloud based software service connected to a LWM2M server running on IBM's Bluemix Cloud Platform which was in turn connected to an Advantech B+B SmartWorx cellular gateway running Connect2 Systems Edge Gateway/LWM2M client software. The sensor data was sent to a business application running on IBM's Watson IoT Platform.
The Wzzard wireless sensor nodes are typically used to monitor the energy consumption and the condition of equipment and facilities. Examples where they have been used include data center temperature monitoring to reduce energy consumption; construction aggregate plant monitoring of '˜crusher' drive motors and conveyor belts to enable predictive maintenance and reduce unexpected failures; and for use in creameries to keep everything at the right temperature and the correct humidity to protect flavor and control bacterial growth.
The Inclinometer wireless sensor nodes are designed for near vertical borehole applications and are used to measure lateral movement in the ground or in a structure for applications such as detecting slopes and landslides; monitoring dams, retaining walls and bending in piles; detecting and recording ground movement due to tunneling operations; and measuring settlement and deformation of concrete slabs and tank bases.
