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.

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.

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