As concerns over global warming continue to grow, green technologies are becoming increasingly popular. Wind turbine companies provide an excellent alternative to burning fossil fuels by harnessing kinetic energy from the wind and converting it into electricity. A typical wind farm may include over 80 wind turbines so efficient and reliable networks to manage and control these installations are imperative. Each wind turbine includes a generator and a variety of serial components such as a water cooler, high voltage transformer, ultrasonic wind sensors, yaw gear, blade bearing, pitch cylinder, and hub controller. All of these components are controlled by a PLC and communicate with the ground host. Due to the total integration of these devices into an Ethernet network, one of our customers in the wind turbine industry needed a serial-to-Ethernet solution that can operate reliably for years without interruption.

One of Singapore's leading engineering and system integration providers needed exactly the right solution for a challenging gas pipeline application. With experience in assembling systems for many different vertical markets such as oil and gas networks, factory automation, and building automation, this system integrator realized that monitoring the temperature of a gas pipeline tunnel is crucial for safe operations. In the confined space of a tunnel, temperature rises easily, and the overheating could cause pipeline fractures that could lead to gas leaks or even explosions. Meanwhile, the long and narrow dimensions inherent to a tunnel meant that more home run cables must be installed to link all the temperature gauge data acquisition I/O devices back to the pipeline's SCADA system, increasing cabling costs. With these stakes and in these conditions, the simple act of regularly taking the temperature transforms into a formidable yet absolutely necessary requirement. System Requirements • Real-time tunnel temperature monitoring to provide early excessive heat warnings • Data acquisition and system management with SCADA system • Ethernet data acquisition system, but with efficient, cost-effective wiring

In the Americas and Europe, electric power is provided by a number of private power plants distributed over wide areas. Optimizing distribution and transmission to meet market demand is always a challenge, particularly since power suppliers need to monitor data usage and combine the data for power generation, distribution, and transmission. Deploying long range wireless automated meter reading will allow power suppliers to better gauge and respond to market demand and optimally allocate energy distribution to control rising energy costs and service interruptions. The customer in this application is a cooperatively owned power services company with over $816 million in assets and nearly 4.3 million MWh in energy sales as of 2007. It supplies power and provides other management services in the western US. The company provides leadership and management of power supply options and continues to implement increasingly sophisticated power management techniques and innovative technologies, giving utilities in the region the ability to offer low-cost power options at stable prices. System Requirements • Long range wireless transmission (satellite, GPRS, WCDMA, microwave, etc.) over wide territories. • Need to transmit data in a low bandwidth network environment. • Self-monitor connection status, when the connection fails, system reboots to restore communication.

Unmanned weather stations play an essential role in the effort to analyze and predict the world's ever-changing weather patterns. The unmanned stations collect and store large amounts of weather data and then download the data at regular intervals to a back-end host for analysis and long-term storage. The computing device housed in the weather station must be robust enough to work continuously for long periods of time while exposed to a wide range of temperatures. It should also be able to collect readings from various sensors that use different data transmission protocols, and have the capability to store large amounts of data.

Water pipeline pressure needs to be kept at 0.3 Mpa in order to deliver a reliable stream of tap water to homes, businesses, and factories. Water companies use real-time monitoring systems in order to achieve consistent water pressure management that can quickly respond to any sudden drops of water pressure. System Requirements - Monitor all the distributed pressure points of a widely distributed water pipeline network - Monitor and display in real-time data from every pressure value on the central SCADA system HMI - Stable cellular communications network - High expandability

One of the largest steel factories in China needed proper communication control units for data processing and protocol conversion with the devices at remote field sites. These computers would replace the IPCs and can easily create a distributed system at the front-end site with a centralized management platform at the back-end control center. This stainless steel factory has deployed a power substation system that contains several subsystems. Each subsystem uses smart meters, and needs to optimize resources, centralize management, and enhance efficiency. In addition, all distributed smart meters at the field site need to be centrally monitored and managed by a system called the “CCMS3000 central management system”, located at the control center. Each 35KV/10KV substation communicates with the back-end server via Intranet, and manages the centralized management and monitoring of the 35KV/10KV. The entire system aims to optimize the power network management and maintenance cost, enhance power distribution quality and management, and deliver real-time discovery, analysis, recording, and handling of problems. The CCMS300 central management system is expected to bring reliability to real-time monitoring of the operation status of all devices at the substations. It needs to perform several tasks, such as analyzing historical workload, power consumption, and system balance, as well as enhance system or device operation efficiency. This system includes four subsystems: Factory 1: Main Station: A communication cabinet includes a telecommunication control unit (DA-662), a switch, 2 optical transceivers, and communication units. Station C: A communication cabinet includes a serial device server (NPort 5430), an optical transceiver, and communication units. Station D: A communication cabinet includes a serial device server (NPort 5430), an optical transceiver, and communication units. The telecommunication control unit (DA-662) is responsible for collecting and controlling all data from stations A, B, C, D, E, and the water station from Factory 1. Factory 2: Main Station: A communication cabinet includes a telecommunication control unit (DA-662), and various communication units. This DA-662 is responsible for collecting and controlling all data from stations G, K, and the water station from Factory 1. Hot-rolled Factory: Main Station: A communication cabinet includes a telecommunication control unit (DA-662), a switch, an optical transceiver, and communication units. Substation: A communication cabinet includes a serial device server (NPort 5430), an optical transceiver, and communication units. The DA-662 is responsible for collecting and controlling all data from the hot-rolled factory and the hot-rolled water station. Cold-rolled Factory: Main Station: A communication cabinet includes a telecommunication control unit (DA-662), a switch, an optical transceiver, and communication units. Substation: A communication cabinet includes a serial device server (NPort 5430), an optical transceiver, and communication units. The DA-662 is responsible for collecting and controlling all data from the cold-rolled factory and the cold-rolled water station. The communication between the DA-662 and the back-end server is based on the TCP/IP IEC 106 protocol. System Requirements • Centralized and stable management platform for the distributed system • Front-end data processing for the field site devices • Protocol conversion among Modbus, DLT645, and TCP/IP IEC 104 • Redundant network architecture for continuous system operation • Easy integration with other communication system • Long MTBF to enhance system reliability

A company in the renewable energy industry needed to find an I/O device which can operate within the demanding requirements of renewable energy systems. Renewable photovoltaic systems are one of the most sustainable and reliable energy technologies available today, and today more and more countries are deploying solar farms to harness the power of the sun to generate a clean power with low CO2 emissions. As an expert in the design, development, installation, and maintenance of photovoltaic systems since 1998, the company provides a solar farm remote monitoring service via satellite communications. However, satellite bandwidth is very limited. Their ideal I/O device must be able to operate in a low-bandwidth environment and support scheduling functions for better light management. System Requirements - I/O device that can overcome low bandwidth limitations - Scheduling function support for lighting systems - SNMP protocol support for remote device monitoring and control