Highlights

  • RipEX, RipEX2
  • Water Management
  • Migration Solution
  • Multiple Repeaters
  • Custom protocol, Modbus TCP, TCP/IP
  • Opto 22 EPIC / Allen Bradley ControlLogix
QUESTIONS ?

Opto Solutions and sister company, Systems Integrator Perceptive Controls & Services, along with others, have recently come under the umbrella of UpT Reliability Solutions. They now combine over 135 years joint experience and expertise to provide turnkey solutions across different business sectors with a single point of contact, to manage projects from start to commissioning, saving customers time, energy, and money.

As an example of what this can offer the market, Opto Solutions and Perceptive controls have recently worked together to provide Migration Solutions to 3 separate water utility companies in the US Mid West, that provide both potage and waste water services. Within all three legacy networks, there were either obsolete radios, a continuing history of multiple communication failures, or both. In all cases, the reliability of the networks was significantly compromised. This was particularly obvious at sites linked using multiple repeaters.

Migration was performed using a parallel operation of legacy radios and RipEX, over two frequencies. All end users were amazed to see how easy RipEX is to configure and that the modem handles all security issues seamlessly and automatically! One end user commented, “Whatever the RTU, it just seems to work. It is as though the RTUs are hardwired in to the computer in the office. Really it just works – I am amazed it could be this easy!”

  • In Portage, MI, the migrated network uses RACOM RipEX and contains 82 radios. The RTUs are Opto 22 EPIC CPU and communicate using a simple yet effective custom protocol developed by Opto Solutions.
  • In Union Township, MI, the migrated network uses RACOM RipEX2 and contains 22 radios. The RTUs are also Opto 22 EPIC CPU but in this network, communication uses Modbus TCP protocol.
  • In Plainwell, MI, the migrated network uses RACOM RipEX and contains 12 radios. In this network the RTUs are Allen Bradley ControlLogix processors and communication is via TCP/IP.

The reliability of RipEX means the end users now enjoy trouble free communication across their networks with no failures or need for constant maintenance. As Todd Reynolds, Partner at Opto Solutions has said “Not one of our 25 engineers have found fault with RipEX. It does what it says on the box and then just keeps on doing it!”

Highlights

  • RipEX2, 400 MHz
  • Water Management
  • Migration solution
  • 16 DEQAM modulation
  • 25 kHz channel
  • Up to four Repeaters
  • Two Control centres
QUESTIONS ?

Vodovody a kanalizace Havlíčkův Brod, a.s. (VaKHB) is a potable water and waste water utility company in Czech Republic that has responsibility for providing potable water services to over 71,000 people. VaKHB owns and operates 3 drinking water plants and some 888 km of water mains. In addition, VaKHB manages waste water disposal for 55,000 people using 325km of sewage pipes and 11 waste water treatment plants. The entire water supply and disposal systems are currently managed from one control centre.

Since 2003 VaKHB has used RACOM MR25 and MR400 radio modems to manage its resources using two independent radio data networks. The legacy telemetry devices were connected to radio modems via RS232 and used legacy serial protocols.

The 17 year old radio network is still highly reliable but its capacity is not good enough for ever-increasing demands on the amount of data to be transferred. VaKHB decided to migrate its legacy communication system to the latest technology that will also allow implementation of security features to meet current and future needs for data communication in mission-critical SCADA networks.

Comparisons between RipEX2 and market competitors coupled with the close relationship developed over the years between VaKHB and RACOM, quickly brought the realisation that RACOM would provide the best state-of-the-art, future-proofed hardware and network solution.

Design and implementation of the project was prepared and completed by the RACOM team, engineers from VaKHB’s SCADA network department and the team at Tele Data Control, all working in close cooperation. TDC is a System integrator and long term partner of RACOM.

Migration to the new network is taking place over an extended period of time and uses a third new frequency that utilizes a 25 kHz channel. All (legacy) remote RTU’s are now connected via COM ports and the centre is using polling type of communication. However, the new network is already ready for future upgrade to TCP/IP communication and report-by-exception. Some remotes require up to four repeaters to allow them to communicate with the control centre, so Flexible protocol is a must. When migration is complete, the number of networks will be reduced to two or even one. VaKHB is also planning to create a second control centre with full access to the radio network.

The new solution uses 16DEQAM modulation and has twice the capacity of the legacy network, offers the latest IP ready technology and future-proofed features making it an excellent investment toward future upgrades to modern RTU’s.

During a recent conversation, Vratislav Straka from VaKHB SCADA department stated:
“RipEX2 helped us solve the problem with data capacity in our radio network. It is also the first step toward migration of the entire network to a modern IP solution meeting the latest demands on data communication in mission-critical SCADA networks.”

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

  • 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 of 50 sites in 2019, another 250 sites were delivered in 2021.

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 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

Affinity Water is the largest water-only supplier in the UK, committed to delivering high quality water service to all its customers. It provides, on average, 900 million litres of water each day to a population of more than 3.6 million people throughout South East England.

As part of an overall modernisation drive, Affinity identified a need to upgrade 5 scanner stations and around 150 remotes as an individual project. The successful solution had three key criteria to meet:

  • Migration to a digital radio that enables implementation of key security features
  • Use a solution that allows smooth transition to a new network, without changing or adding base stations or frequencies
  • Move toward Water Industry Telemetry Standard protocol

Part of the tender process involved potential suppliers performing heavy tests to assess their proposed hardware solutions. Bench tests were conducted to confirm the functionality of the Migration solution and to ensure the new radios could handle traffic routed through them on the legacy protocol, Proteus 2000 and Serck RTU’s.

Field tests were then initiated, involving the installation of a migration base station to communicate with 3 remotes, all with very weak RSS on a shared frequency, while the legacy network still ran in parallel. This test was specifically to perform link stability proofing.

Since the RACOM Migration solution is very easy to understand and implement, all tests were smoothly materialised by our partner, EMR Integrated Solutions with RACOM support.

After undergoing all these tests and evaluating the hardware and software parameters offered with RipEX and other radios, RipEX was chosen as the optimal solution for this Migration solution.

As noted by Andrew Fletcher, Telemetry Systems Manager for Affinity, “The cost of migrating from analogue to digital shouldn’t be underestimated.  With the RipEX base stations we now have, we don’t need to revisit sites twice to change frequencies and we don’t need additional base stations or licenses. There’s a big benefit to that.”

It has also been commented on by Affinity Water management that the roll out of radios is happening exceptionally fast which implies the engineers are particularly comfortable with every aspect of RipEX.

The principal value added extra of the solution, is improved management and monitoring. Affinity has been able to streamline its maintenance programme, undertaking much higher levels of remote monitoring of all radios, thus minimising site visits and making substantial cost savings as a result.

A real life example to further explain the added value of remote monitoring is explained by Andrew Fletcher. “We can suffer from atmospheric interference in certain areas and that had a big impact on our signals until RACOM solution was used.  With RipEX we can now log in remotely, see how the interference is climbing and where. It reduces the effort required to identify the problem and it’s speedier for to us to respond.”

Highlights

  • M!DGE
  • Leased services network
  • Mission critical applications
  • Ethernet and serial interface
  • Mountainous arctic environment
  • Extreme temperatures up to -30 oC
  • Over 500 units deployed

LMC (Last Mile Communication) has delivered enterprise-critical communication solutions with high focus on quality and reliability to customers since 1999. During that time LMC has become aware of a large demand for remote management, monitoring, tracking, alert, and remote access at customer installations with emphasis on security, that did not have a solution available on the market.

IOG, an LMC company, was formed with the commitment to meet that demand and provide solutions and expertise, making it possible to use cellular networks for these critical industrial installations. IOG makes it easy to establish and operate robust M2M solutions. The IOG network operates as a leased service for virtual private networks with typically 2-70 sites.

With the remoteness of many locations requiring these services, in Northern latitudes and rugged mountainous landscape, it has been important to develop robust solutions and use only the highest quality hardware. Adding to the challenge is the fact that many applications are mission critical, including pumping and power stations.

The IOG business model provides leased services and a commitment to provide high SLA provision to their customers; it has been essential for IOG to ensure that every part of the infrastructure meets the stringent demands placed on it.

Years of experience has proven that the RACOM M!DGE is the best choice in such an environment, providing excellent levels of stability. IOG customers also appreciate the serial SCADA protocol implementation.

As of 2017, IOG has over 500 M!DGE units in service and is delighted with the reliability offered by the device, helping IOG develop and maintain a justifiable reputation for quality in the Scandinavian market and beyond.

Dag Nielsen, Technical Director, states “LMC cooperation with RACOM dates back to 2001. During this time LMC has used different RACOM products and has always been happy and satisfied with levels of performance and reliability. RACOM technical support has also been excellent. It is why M!DGE is our product of choice.”

Highlights

  • RipEX 400 MHz
  • Water distribution
  • Migration from legacy network
  • Robustness, Reliability, Flexibility
  • SIEMENS S7-1200 RTU’s
  • Direct remote-to-remote communication
  • More than 50 sites

Andalucia in the South of Spain is renowned for its rugged countryside and dry climate. Within the region lies Alcala la Real. Its population of about 22,000 inhabitants are fully aware of the essential need to preserve freshwater resources.

For over 20 years ADALSA (Aguas de Alcala la Real) has managed the supply and distribution of potable water to the consumers of this province. This has not been easy due to the scarcity of water resources and the layout of the land making water supply extraordinarily complex, with 15 catchments, 29 regulation tanks and 8 pumping stations.

Committed to embracing new technologies to maximise the efficient use of water and ensure this vital resource is not squandered, ADALSA came to realise they would have to migrate from their legacy UHF radio modem network to improve robustness and reliability as well as higher flexibility of their SCADA network. The network consists of a control centre, a set of remote control stations and a communications system for the data transmission between them. The remote stations have PLC control automata SIEMENS S7-1200.

After assessing the capabilities of a number of products on the market RipEX digital radio equipment was chosen as the best solution, based on its dependability, high reliability and high data throughput. RipEX also enables direct communication between related remote stations eg. the pump station and deposit level of water, without the intervention of the base station.

Although migration of the network is not yet complete, discussions about expansion of the network are already well under way. ADALSA is delighted that its commitment to new technologies is already reaping the rewards of more efficient and effective use of this invaluable resource under its control, generating long term benefits for the citizens of Alcala La Real.

Highlights

  • RipEX, 400 MHz
  • Water well management
  • Installation in desert, over +50 °C
  • High reliability
  • Long distances – 10W
  • Modbus protocol
  • One Master & 64 remotes

Although 71% of the earth is made up of water, only 2.5% of this water is fresh and suitable for human consumption. This creates a growing demand to establish alternative accessible fresh water reservoirs, including groundwater.

Water wells are commonly drilled to enable access to ground water reservoirs. The ground water can then be transferred between reservoirs to maintain regulated supplies. To manage such an invaluable resource, a secure and reliable communication method is required between the pumps, equipment and the water wells.

RipEX radio modems have been chosen as the optimal solution for a project providing water well management in Saudi Arabia. The Systems Integrator, Abunayyan Trading, were asked to provide a solution to transmit telemetry data from sixty four wells to a Central control centre. Key requirements included using a radio that offered 10Watt availability and that was able to transmit over long distances without the need for repeaters.

Having looked at and tested a selection of options available to them, Abunayyan selected RipEX as their radio of choice; the listed parameters for this radio modem, backed up with test results, showed RipEX was a perfect solution for this particular project.

One RipEX radio was positioned at the central control room as Master using Modbus protocol to communicate with the slaves. Master slave polling has been configured using half duplex communication thus ensuring that any radio transmission could use the full bandwidth available.

Specific issues that had been raised during the planning stage of the project were the long distances between sites and the harsh conditions of the environment that the equipment had to endure. On both counts RipEX reputation for reliability, performance and robustness have proven to be well founded.

Furthermore, the intuitive design of the interface enabled the network to be configured and implemented without needing to seek additional support from RACOM.

Highlights

  • RipEX 400, 400 MHz
  • Water distribution
  • Modbus TCP
  • Autospeed functionality
  • TCP proxy
  • AES256 encryption
  • PtP and PtMP, Robust NLOS

Eau du Grand Lyon contracted Veolia to provide an efficient potable water supply to over 800,000 people within 33 municipalities; this contract came into force in February 2015. Eau du Grand Lyon wanted to benefit from the latest wireless technologies to expand its remote management network and entrusted SYSOCO the task of connecting a network of new remote sites. These included interconnections of production and processing structures such as boreholes, catchments, pumping and chlorination stations and infrastructure responsible for the storage and distribution of water.

As a means of managing the complete network, it was split into four zones. Each zone has its own control centre and each control centre communicates with the central command centre.

The standard method used to transfer data to and from each control centre is via Microwave link and Radio modems. At sites, which are too far from the control centre to be serviced effectively via microwave link, or require robust NLOS communication, RipEX was found to provide the optimal solution.  At other sites there is a need for PtMP communications and here again, only RipEX provides the ideal solution.

Eau du Grand Lyon were more than happy with RipEX being chosen after they discovered each RipEX unit offers three distinct levels of security and RACOM had partnered Sysoco in a number of previous network implementations. Also Modbus TCP, routing, frequency options and the modulation agility of RipEX more than meet the demands of the network.

Thierry Muron, Account Manager with Sysoco commented that he was very happy with the levels of support provided by RACOM’s technical support team; from providing complete radio propagation studies for each NLOS site to visiting with Sysoco engineers to configure the first RipEX site.

Since commissioning, the RipEX units have functioned perfectly and both Sysoco and RACOM are looking forward to joining forces on other projects in the future.

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