SCADA, Telematics & GPS Technologies

This is a kind of brilliant idea, since current trends of laptops manufactured with accelerometer sensors. And this would be a large peer-to-peer earthquake warning system. Sounds like SETI@home, but for collecting data instead of processing it. From NPR.org:

Newer models of laptops manufactured by companies like Apple and Lenovo contain accelerometers — motion sensors meant to detect whether the computer has been dropped. If the computer falls, the hard drive will automatically switch off to protect the user’s data.

“As soon as I knew there were these low-cost sensors inside these accelerometers, I thought it would be perfect to use them to network together and actually record earthquakes,” says geoscientist Elizabeth Cochran of the University of California, Riverside.

So a few years ago, Cochran got in touch with Jesse Lawrence, a colleague at Stanford. They whipped up a program called the Quake-Catcher Network. It’s a free download that runs silently in the background, collecting data from the computer’s accelerometer and waiting to detect an earthquake.

Laptop accelerometers aren’t as sensitive as professional-grade seismometers, so they can only pick up tremors of about magnitude 4.0 and above. But when a laptop does sense a tremor, it’ll ping the researchers’ server. “And when our server receives a bunch of those, we then say, ‘This is a likely earthquake,’ ” Lawrence says.

No accelerometer sensor but still want to participate? That won’t be any problem since you can purchase a USB sensor for use on your desktop computers. A lot of these, reportedly, are being installed in public schools.

Courtesy: Make

When the Department of Natural Resources of Australia decided that they needed to capture data about the natural flooding of a cave, they turned to a hacker to get results. The goal was to photograph the area during these floods with an automated system. In the end, they used a gutted Lumix digital camera mounted in a trash can, covered in aluminium foil. Though it sounds a bit silly, the final product turned out quite nice. You can see the build log, schematics, and results on the project page.

In this case the event they are trying to capture pictures of a cave flood with a Flood Triggered Automated Camera System. The system consists of a camera that is connected to a moisture sensor so that the a camera can start taking pictures when the sensor gets wet. Pictures will continue to be taken every 15 minutes until the moisture levels go back to normal. Since it is being installed in a remote location it needed to be self sustaining.

The water sensor is an interesting design since it has the ability of killing the power to the entire system when the conditions are dry. This is done by using a Darlington transistor feeding a relay.

Courtesy of Penguins Lab

Stumble upon MultiDisplay car monitoring system. Unlike traditional systems that rely on interfacing with the OBD-II protocol and existing car computer, the MultiDisplay uses an Arduino and custom shield with a combination of sensors; including temperatures, pressures, throttle, Boost, and etc. The data collected can then be displayed on a 20×4 LCD or streamed to a PC with visualization and event recording. It’s an Arduino based open source display for interesting measurand´s of a car hosted on Google Code.

Courtesy: Multidisplay via Hackaday

The Cheap Vegetable Gardner wanted more automation than their previous PS2 controller based grow system. This time they set out to design a full featured, compact grow controller that can measure temperature and humidity as well as control a heat lamp, fan, and water pump. An Arduino provides USB connectivity and interfaces the solid state relays and sensors. The assembled project all fits in a box but we are left wondering how much heat the four SSRs generate and will it be a problem?

source: hackaday

This is a classic example of a well done hack, simply for the sake of hacking. [Jorge] wanted to be able to chart his weight changes.  His solution wasn’t to simply buy a scale that could be hooked to the computer. Those are available and aren’t really that expensive. He could have even used pencil and paper to chart it in a few seconds. Instead, [Jorge] started hacking. He took apart a digital scale he already had and installed his own circuit to display weight and write the values to a CSV. The CSV resides on a removable card which can then be put in his computer to chart the data in openoffice.

source: Hack A Day

As everyone who’s had a ref make a bad call at their team’s expense knows, NFL refs aren’t perfect. But footballs and gloves with built-in sensors? Those might just make coach’s challenges history.

Dr. Priya Narasimhan of Carnegie Mellon University has developed the football and gloves, loading them up with wireless sensors that can precisely determine whether or not a ball hit the ground before being caught or whether or not someone had control of the ball before fumbling. It could also, using GPS, determine whether or not the ball cross the goal line. But the applications don’t stop there.

Eventually, the same kind of sensors used in the gloves could be adapted to shoes, to measure stride and running patterns, or even shoulder pads, to calculate blocking positions and force.The current version of the glove has 15 touch sensors on the fingers and palm, running to a wireless module on the back of the arm, said Adam Goldhammer of Richboro, Bucks County, a master’s student in electrical engineering at Carnegie Mellon.

Source: Gizmodo.com

Audon Electronics is offering the Edam-9000 range of Ethernet-based industrial data acquisition and control RTU devices.

The Edam-9000 range is based on 10/100 Ethernet networking standards and supports the Modus/TCP protocol.

The Edam-9000 also supports UDP protocol over Ethernet networking.

There are six models in the range, covering voltage, thermocouple and PRT analogue inputs, digital inputs, pulse counting and transistor outputs.

All have a 10-30VDC power supply range, full opto-isolation and are housed in robust DIN rail mount enclosures.

Users can add Edam-9000 I/O modules to existing Ethernet networks or use Edam-9000 modules in new or existing SCADA systems.

source: Processing Talks

The Z-Wave Home Control standard expands its reach with the announcement of the Advanced Energy Control Framework (AEC), a specification for advanced energy management technologies that empower homeowners to make informed decisions for energy consumption and monitor home devices. Z-Wave’s AEC will integrate smart metering, consumer notification, automated load shedding and home controls to enable real-time energy management and to help reduce energy demand, lower utility costs and provide active control over home energy consuming devices. Zensys presents the AEC at the Metering Europe event in Amsterdam (Booth J15) between the 22nd and 24th of September, 2008.

“The Z-Wave Advanced Energy Control Framework is a breakthrough in home energy management that will allow homeowners to actively monitor utility costs and demand response in order to save energy and money while reducing their carbon footprint,” says Mark Walters, chairman of the Z-Wave Alliance. “Some utilities are looking to use smart meters to dynamically adjust billing rates based on energy consumption. With AEC we can notify the homeowner of these changes so they can make informed decisions on how they want to consume energy. With Z-Wave and AEC the power to conserve is in the hands of homeowners, not the utilities.”

Transparency and management reduce energy costs
Most consumers receive only one electricity meter reading per month, providing little insight into their daily energy consumption and habits. With Z-Wave’s AEC, consumers can view their energy consumption anytime and anywhere in order to determine when they are using the most energy, and then can work to reduce overuse. Homeowners can also respond to utility billing structures, such as time-of-use pricing and tariff schedules, to minimize energy usage at peak times.

“With its undisputed strength in interoperability and its range of available products, Z-Wave does not only provide for the simple communication from an electricity meter to a gateway and a wireless display in the home,” says Roar Seeger, CEO of Modstroem, a Danish utility company. “It also enables the control of devices in the home that actually consume the power. Especially this second aspect is essential for Modstroem’s advanced service and key to actually achieving energy reduction without compromising comfort for the consumer.”

Z-Wave’s large selection of interoperable home energy control devices enables AEC solutions for a range of consumer scenarios, from simple energy monitoring with smart meters and home displays, to fully integrated device networks including thermostats, home control panels, gateways, sensors, controlled lighting, window coverings and other electrical devices. All the data is collected through an easy-to-understand central Z-Wave control interface that provides homeowners with the information they need to best manage their energy consumption.

Metering Europe: movement in the utility market
This year, the tenth anniversary of the Metering, Billing/CRM Europe takes place in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Since the European member states have opened their electricity and gas markets to competition, the demand for solutions which enable an efficient use of energy and lower the costs increases rapidly. So the investments in smart metering technologies are on the rise. Against this background Zensys will present its Advanced Energy Control Framework in Amsterdam and explain the benefits of the new solution with regard to energy efficiency and the management of consumption.

Source: Sensor News

Sometime, the GPRS coverage & priority issue is a turning down subject in our AVLS operations. Despite of GPS data errors and interferences, we choose to add SMS  mode for failsafe function to our AVLS architecture. It’s not really a big deal to develope the back engine, but in considering the alarm dispacthing functions. Maybe, it will become another turning down factor in our bussiness. the dispatcher should be really intelligent to determine the raw data despite of many of uncertainty factors that always bother. We bought a quad-core dell 1U rack server in order to replace our old beloved application server, a 4 pentium 4 Dell 5U tower server. We done doing upgrades to database server, and now working on the back-end & front-end application test. In another hand, we are migrating the Telemery System for waterworks…. developing a friendly GUI for Flood Monitoring System plus testing the alarm dispatching functions, still handling data loses in ABB EM meters integrations… sigh!

RS Hydro have recently won two seperate contracts to supply anWater Quality Sonde with Remote Monitoring Telemetry Troll Link Systemd install the Troll 9500 multiparameter water quality sonde in remote locations in Wales. Two further units are being supplied as stand-alone platforms.

The clients are using the Troll 9500 XP Professional platform along with the Troll Link solar powered telemetry system with plug and play sensors including turbidity, level, temperature, conductivity and pH/ORP. One of the clients is using the Troll 9500 to provide an early warning alarm to inform the client if any of their remedial works on a dam face are having an influence on the water quality of the compensation flow from the reservoir. The other client is using 4 units to measure water quality in a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) over a period of two years.

Both clients are using RS Hydro’s FlowView platform to provide all the data on a daily basis. Should any of the alarm thresholds be exceeded, text (SMS) messages will be sent direct to the client. It is possible to view a demo of the Troll 9500 on our local river. Before you think there are errors in the conductivity readings, they are correct! The Salwarpe RIver is partly fed by Droitiwch Spa’s naturally occuring brine baths, hence at low flows, conductivity rises dramatically.

Source: RS Hydro