Highlights

• RipEX, 300 MHz
• Environmental Monitoring
• Installation on sea buoys
• Solar powered
• Flexible protocol
• Maximum reliability
• Multiple repeaters

The Arabian Gulf has some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. Many of the vessels are Oil tankers that use offshore moorings while their cargo of oil is loaded for transportation around the world.

The Kuwaiti authorities understand the environment is a major element of the comprehensive development of a country. The Environment Public Authority (EPA) of Kuwait was established to monitor the environment and implement international legislation and policy. In 2016 a decision was taken to establish an environmental monitoring information system using a network of buoys, strategically positioned throughout the coastal waters of Kuwait, to monitor water quality and alert the authority to oil spillages.

The logistics of establishing and maintaining a marine monitoring offshore network meant the authority could only consider radio modems with an industrial hardened design that use heavy duty industrial components and can provide  a 24/7 reliable service in a harsh maritime climate. The only radio modem that EPA Kuwait sourced that could meet all their criteria was the RACOM RipEX radio modem.

The network was designed to operate using Flexible protocol at a frequency in 300 MHz band. Due to the distances involved, it was necessary to use several repeaters to enable data transmissions between the center and farthest buoys.

The network came into service in 2017 and has been successfully helping EPA monitor the environment in Kuwaiti coastal waters ever since.

Highlights

• RipEX, 400 MHz
• M!DGE
• Water Management
• Hybrid network
• Flexible protocol
• Back up routes
• Fully redundant data centres

Vodovody a kanalizace Hradec Králové, a.s. (VAK HK, a.s.) is a municipally owned water utility company that is responsible for clean water supply and wastewater disposal. With its headquarters in Hradec Kralove in the East of Czechia, it provides water utilities to over 170,000 inhabitants using more than 1350 km of pipes and 550 km of sewers. VAK HK, a.s. infrastructure is operated by Královéhradecká Provozní, a.s. a member of the global Veolia group.

The legacy communications network, used to help manage its resources, used CONEL CDA radio modems with serial RDS protocol. Because of  the end of support for all CONEL based devices, VAK HK, a.s. used this as an opportunity to source a modern, robust, IP network to provide reliable data communications now and in the future.

Current and future requirements were analysed and it was agreed the optimal solution would be best achieved using a Hybrid network with fully redundant data centres. In order to minimize disruption at any time during installation, the choice of Migration solution was also an important factor.

After comparing available options from different manufacturers, VAK HK, a.s. quickly realised that RACOM products and solutions ticked all the boxes.

The RipEX Radio modem and M!DGE Cellular router, both market leaders in their fields, share many SW and logic features. A central RipEX manages the routing of traffic, so an application can be implemented with one network interface. RipEX and M!DGE make ideal bed partners in any Hybrid network.

The RACOM Migration solution, too, is designed to ensure there is no network outage and that migration can be implemented as part of a regular maintenance program. And RACOM also manufacture the cabinets required to house all the new equipment – A complete one stop shop!

During migration, VAK HK, a.s. opted to use a parallel operation of legacy radios and RipEX, set up using two frequencies. Key repeater points were equipped with a duplexer allowing the network to operate on both frequencies simultaneously; one for the legacy network and the second for traffic on the RipEX.

27 primary sites, identified as critical infrastructure, are now equipped with M!DGE and RipEX working in parallel, making use of the RipEX Backup routing functionality to achieve high accessibility.

As the RipEX radio segment provides the highest availability, legacy RTU’s are connected to RipEX. However, when RipEX backup routing recognises there is an LTE connection available, traffic is routed through M!DGE to make best use of the connection. The M!DGE segment uses GRE tunneling within a private APN segment, terminated to a Cisco ASR box in the customer’s server house. This set up provides near 100% site connection availability.

An additional 69 points, identified as secondary sites, are radio only and have been migrated to RipEX with the legacy RDS serial or Modbus TCP protocol.

All the equipment is housed in cabinets, manufactured and supplied by RACOM.

Phase two of the project, already planned, will include two fully redundant data centres at different locations in case there is ever a need for disaster recovery. A private MPLS customer network will also be established to interconnect the data centres and relay points.

Highlights

• Cableways security
• France
• RipEX, 160 MHz
• Flexible protocol
• Czechia
• RipEX2, 400 MHz
• Base driven protocol

The versatility and features of RACOM’s RipEX radio modems have proven to be key in providing improved security in mountain transportation.

France
In the Rhone-Alps region of France, the operators of Saint-Hilaire du Touvet funicular railway were looking to install a ‘positive’ security system.  The railway links Montfort in the valley with the village of Saint-Hilaire du Touvet, some 600 metres higher in the mountains and is perhaps best known for transporting competitors and spectators into the mountains each summer for the Icarus Cup, a major festival of free flight.

The key issue to be overcome for reliable communications? – the funicular route contains two blind bends and a tunnel! Of all the technologies considered, only RipEX was able to provide a signal 100% of the time between each train and the control centre; all because of the sensitivity of RipEX!

One device is fitted to each funicular train with another fixed device on the ground acting as the base station. Every two seconds each RipEX in the trains send a frame to the base station saying “OK”. The whole system and trains are stopped if any device sends an alarm or fails to receive the “OK” frame every two seconds.

The frequency used is 169.4 MHz, a license free band if data transmissions take up less than 1% of the time. In this situation this can be achieved because RipEX has a high data rate; sending a frame only takes a few milliseconds even when Flexible protocol and packet acknowledgement are used.

Czech Republic
Meanwhile, in Horní Hanychov , Liberec in the North of Czech Republic, Easy Control Morava who operate a gondola system to transport tourists to the top of Ještěd mountain, a famous landmark in the region offering views into Germany and Poland, were also looking at security.

In order to provide improved levels of security and safety on the two gondolas, a second independent communication system was required to provide communications between the control centre and the gondola drivers. Different technologies were tested but only RipEX could offer the levels of reliability required for this application.

The driver of each gondola communicates with the PLC. The PLC operates as a control to force an emergency stop if there is an issue with either driver. This TCP/IP application uses RipEX2 at 400 MHz using Base Driven protocol and 16DEQAM modulation.

Good communication and cooperation between clients and RACOM’s support engineers ensured installation and commissioning of both applications ran smoothly.

Both clients are very happy with the increased levels of security they can now offer on their respective transportation systems.

Highlights

• RipEX, 400 MHz
• Overhead transport management
• Moving Installation
• TCP/IP
• Base Driven Protocol
• FEC
• Flexible rod antennas

The ZPSV s.r.o. company, based in the Czech Republic, manufactures concrete products for the building industry, specialising in transport structures for railways and other ground works. The company started producing the first reinforced concrete sleepers, now used globally, as far back as 1955.

Their plant in Uhersky Ostroh, Czech Republic has three manufacturing halls. During the manufacturing process, equipment is transported between the halls using carts on an overhead transport system. Movement of the carts is managed by communication between the carts and a central control system.

With the introduction of new powerful engines to the manufacturing processes over time, interference levels increased substantially. As a result the original Power Line Communication became unreliable and a replacement needed to be found. The search was on to find a communication system that could withstand the high levels of interference and ensure reliable and efficient management of the carts’ movements between the manufacturing halls.

RipEX was selected for tests and was set up using TCP/IP with Base Driven Protocol managing the communications. FEC was also switched on to achieve optimal, error free communication. Initial tests used a dipole antenna. Unfortunately this did not fit in the passage so was replaced by flexible rod antennas in the final configuration without having any negative affect on communications.

The entire test took place during the quarantine period of Covid 19 with RACOM support engineers able to assist remotely to configure the entire installation. This consists of one fixed central radio near to the control room and three on the wagons in a moving installation.

The customer is very satisfied with the solution and has already ordered equipment to expand the network to cover the remaining manufacturing hall.

Highlights

• RipEX2, RipEX2-HS
• Power and Water Distribution
• Base driven protocol
• DNP3
• Ongoing migration
• DPSK to 256 QAM
• 25 kHz bandwidth

Fez, known globally for curing quality leather using traditional techniques, is the second largest city in Morocco with a population of 1.7 million people. RADEEF has the responsibility of ensuring efficient distribution of water and electricity to all inhabitants over the entire territory of the prefecture of Fez.

RADEEF uses several hundred radio modems to manage the distribution of water and electricity. The existing modems are old, using serial connections and are not compliant with new security requirements that are now mandatory in Morocco for such applications. The need to upgrade provided RADEEF with an ideal opportunity to migrate to a modern IP solution. But it was also important to ensure any new solution would be both state-of-the-art and future proofed.

After exhaustive research, RADEEF selected RipEX2 as the optimal solution. Not only does it easily meet the new government security requirements but network throughput prospects are beyond what RADEEF had thought possible. Other features of RipEX2 that RADEEF benefits from include the RipEX2-HS hot standby Master station, interference tolerance, scalability of the radios and RACOM’s Migration solution which allows one by one legacy replacements with no outage during migration and no additional expensive HW required.

Phase one of the migration is built around a star topology and consists of two sub-networks of twenty five RipEX2 units, each with a RipEX2-HS at the centre. Two more RipEX2-HS stations are used to connect the sub-networks to the control centre. During deployment, SOHIME, the integrator, assigned two engineers to the project to join a RACOM engineer sent from HQ and RADEEF engineers. Excellent cooperation and teamwork between the three parties involved, ensured maximum success with most connections being highly modulated between 64 and 256 QAM.

Having successfully commissioned the first phase, another 180 sites will be migrated in 2020. And discussions have already started to improve the solution even further. The SCADA centre is at the other side of the city from the networks but as there is LOS between the two, there is the possibility of using a RACOM RAy microwave link instead of narrow radio channel to speed up data transmissions on this link.

Highlights

• RipEX, RipEX-HS, 400 MHz
• Power distribution
• Extreme reliability requirements
• IEC 104 – Base driven protocol
• Bespoke cabinets made by RACOM
• Siemens Ruggedcom switches
• ABB RTU’s

Founded in 1997, the Electricity Distribution Company (EDCO) assumes responsibility for planning, installation, operation and maintenance of electricity distribution systems over more than half of the Kingdom of Jordan.

In 2015 EDCO went out to tender for a major project to connect selected substations to a new SCADA/DMS/AMR control center in Amman. The system should be responsible for monitoring, control and technical management of the existing and future generation distribution networks, covering EDCO’s entire field of operations.

EDCO put maximum stress on reliability and redundancy and initially hoped to use Fibre Optics for communication. Due to the topography and other physical restrictions, Fibre Optics was only possible over a very limited area. After extensive research with their consultants, they established that a UHF data network could also provide a good solution when optimal equipment would be used.

After lengthy research and testing, they decided to use RipEX and its 1+1 hot-standby redundant version RipEX-HS. These devices fully met current need as well as the specification requirements for future monitoring and control requests, a specific consideration from EDCO within the tender process.

Other key considerations for the project included, specific routing functionality, high levels of reliability, dual power supply option for RipEX-HS units (both AC & DC supply in every single unit) and a requirement at specific locations for 10 W RF power.

In total, the initial network comprises 12 RipEX-HS and 25 RipEX modems, all enclosed within indoor type wall mount cabinets, pre-assembled/wired with all ancillaries and built and tested to the customer’s exact specification by RACOM.

Support mechanisms provided by the RACOM technical support team also proved crucial at all stages of the project, keeping development on track and helping the contractor meet specific deadlines set by the customer. This involved remote support and also site visits to provide hands-on support in the field.

Both the end customer and contractor were extremely happy with the levels of professional assistance they received from RACOM staff, including sales, management and technical support. RACOM were praised for the quality of our products, high levels of service and full commitment to the project on a number of occasions throughout the life of the project. Discussions are already underway to discuss possibilities for RACOM to further support EDCO in the future for their network expansion.

Highlights

• RipEX 160 MHz
• Water Management
• Solar powered
• Flexible protocol
• Back up routes, Repeaters
• Ongoing Migration
• 4CPFSK modulation

Sebou Hydraulic Basin Agency has responsibility for the integrated management of surface and underground water resources within the Sebou basin in Morocco. Water must be preserved in this severe environment and protected against climatic extremes, in particular floods and drought. The basin holds one third of the country’s surface water and is managed by over 10 dams with its industrial and agricultural output providing a considerable contribution to the country’s economy.

The initial telemetry system, used to support water management, was based on GSM transmissions but had marked limitations in terms of throughput and network coverage. For this reason, in 2014, the agency tendered for state-of-the-art, future proofed radio equipment for the hydro-climatological stations to establish a real time, robust and reliable system for flood warning. The legacy GSM network would be kept and used as a back up to the migration network.

The RACOM RipEX radio was chosen for many reasons not least because it provides secure and easy to use IP native communications and has built in features that allow it to function using solar power. Radios are set up in Flexible protocol on the Radio channel using routing tables to manage data communications over the network including Back up routes. The installation engineers were delighted at the simplicity of configuration via the integrated web interface and remote administration possibilities.

The initial migration was realised with 3 stations, 2 repeaters and one acquisition centre at agency headquarters. Making excellent use of the beneficial features of RACOM’s Migration solution, this was scaled up over a four year period to a network consisting of 25 stations, 4 repeaters and one acquisition centre. Indeed, remote stations, up to 80 km from the centre, function without deterioration of their quality of transmission and other stations show the adaptability of the RipEX radio by operating simultaneously as stations and repeaters. The project to extend the radio network is still in force thanks to its compliance with the requirements, in terms of availability, of hydro-climatological data in real time.

Such has been the success of the network to support the Agency’s aims and satisfaction of the engineers involved in the roll out, plans are in place to provide the radio experience to other clients and establish new networks to further support water management in Morocco.

Highlights

• RipEX 400 MHz
• Split time transmissions
• Online TV broadcasting
• Three locations, Multiple hops
• Flexible protocol
• Highest possible reliability
• 25 kHz, 4CPFSK

Nowadays it is almost impossible to organize and run certain sporting event without split times on TV displays in the centre of the event and in TV broadcasts. Spectators seldom realise the challenges involved in transferring split time data from the course to the event centre, especially for sports that take place over a large area like orienteering, mass runs, cycling, cross-country skiing, triathlon etc.

When cables cannot be used, wireless technology must be utilized; Radio modems or Cellular routers from RACOM then become an obvious solution.

In reality, 3G or 4G networks are not the best choice. The cellular network covering the area is not ready to cater for the demands of the large numbers of spectators that are coming just for the event; It is overloaded and becomes unreliable. Sometimes cellular network coverage is also missing in more remote parts of the course. In such a case, the best solution for split time transfer is using a private radio network with RipEX radio modems temporarily installed just for the event.

On Line System is a recognised supplier of accurate timing at sports events including Jizerská 50, one of eleven races of Visma Ski Classic long distance cross country ski championships. This race in Czech Republic attracts around 5000 competitors every year. On Line System started experiencing increased issues with 3G/4G networks over a number of years. In 2018 they decided to make the change and use RipEX radio modems in order to provide higher levels of reliability and the levels of service they are renowned for.

Each year, split times are recorded at the same three points around the course, so there was no possibility to change the locations. Because of that, one set of split times had to be transmitted over a distance of 15km using three radio hops to provide the levels of reliability required.

In order to further guarantee reliability, radios were set up to operate on a 25 kHz channel using ‘only’ 4CPFSK modulation in Flexible protocol. The Application uses TCP/IP transmitting 70B packets per split time. New packets are queued for transmission awaiting TCP acknowledgement from the centre for each previous packet, ensuring the radio network is not unnecessarily overloaded.

As a further test of the robustness of the RipEX solution, split times were being transmitted from three independent locations on the course that could not hear each other. The efficiency of the RipEX radio protocol is such that it was able to comfortably manage all collisions created by simultaneous transmissions from these three locations and two repeaters.

Petr Blazej, owner of On Line System said, “We are delighted with the performance levels achieved by RipEX throughout the event. Knowing that the data was being transmitted over a secure and robust link made the whole event a more relaxing experience for us and we are looking forward to using RipEX in a similar capacity in future events”.

Highlights

• RipEX 400 MHz
• Power Distribution
• Bridge mode
• Recloser Management
• 25 km average link length
• Easy setup & management
• Remote rural area

Empresa Distribuidora de Electricidad de Salta S.A. (Edesa) generates and distributes electricity in Argentina’s Salta Province in the North West corner of the country. Since commencing operations in this region, the Company has been fully committed to provide the community with quality service levels and high safety standards. This involves ensuring electricity distribution is managed using the necessary tools so that the productive sector can anticipate and respond to the demands of the market.

Due to the geography of the Province, there are still scattered rural areas to which EDESA’s energy systems do not have access. Edesa is also fully committed to ensuring electricity provision as a new service, exclusively, to all inhabitants of Salta who request it.

One such new network, providing electricity to a rural area within the Province, uses RipEX radio modems to connect the SCADA network to reclosers. Set up to operate in Bridge mode, the RipEX units are installed in cabinets and mounted on poles in both the city and mountainous regions; the average length of link is between 20 and 30 km.

A Best-In-Class radio, RipEX is renowned for providing 24/7 reliable service for mission-critical SCADA applications for power networks and meeting all security requirements. With a high resistance to multipath propagation and interference and built from heavy duty industrial components, all mounted in a rugged die-cast aluminum case, RipEX is an obvious choice of modem to function reliably in these demanding semi-arid conditions.

We look forward to also helping Edesa meet their commitments of quality and safety to other communities they serve in the future.

Highlights

• RipEX 450 MHz
• Mountain Rescue service
• PMR voice system
• Base to Base backhaul
• 50kHz channel, 16 DEQAM, 140 kbps
• Mountainous Region
• PtP Robust NLOS

TOPR [Tatrzanskie Ochotnicze Pogotowie Ratunkowe], founded in 1909, is a government funded organisation that provides Mountain rescue services in the Polish Tatras mountains and reports on weather and avalanche conditions.

A key part of the infrastructure that supports these services is a permanently manned rescue shelter high in the Tatras mountains. Having search and rescue personnel stationed at 1,700 meters, offers much faster access to large parts of the region in times of emergency.

The isolated PMR base station on the tower close to the rescue shelter covered local communication needs, but it was not interconnected with the other base stations in the network. Because of this, rescuers didn’t have connection with the rest of their team in the valley, nor with helicopters scrambled to support search and rescue missions. Staff at the rescue shelter were forced to use GSM services for communication with colleagues, but with very limited success. Being a mountainous region there were many coverage blind spots and the GSM channel was showing capacity limitations due to increased usage by tourists.

A decision was taken within TOPR to source and commission a reliable link between the Base stations at the rescue shelter and below in the valley, providing secure communications within TOPR using a private PMR licensed radio with Kairos trunk connection. Initial hopes of using a 5GHz microwave link were dropped when link analysis showed this was not possible due to the distance and NLOS environment.

RACOM’s RipEX radio was then identified as being the optimal solution. Despite the NLOS environment and 15 km link distance, network throughput using RipEX is enough for effective PMR base station communications. Indeed, this radio modem provides sufficient coverage and speed, with a 50 kHz channel to easily meet all end user need. Operating at 450 MHz on the UHF band using 16DEQAM modulation, 140 kbps and powered at 2W, RipEX passed every test with flying colours.

With high resistance to multipath propagation and interference, an industrial hardened design and the ability to work seamlessly in extreme conditions, RipEX is sure to be helping TOPR save lives in the Tatras Mountains for many years to come.