Volley Boast Monitoring Service Overview
Volley Boast provides customers with the data and analytics necessary to both increase revenues and improve operational efficiency. Modern technology offers the opportunity to monitor production, equipment, facilities, and operations that were previously too expensive and difficult to track remotely. Properly deployed, such technology helps customers know where their team’s attention is most needed and how their manpower can be put to optimal use.
The elegance and simplicity of Volley Boast’s Monitoring Service is driven by two key parameters:
Intermittent Data Collection
For many businesses there is a sweet spot on the cost/benefit spectrum between continuous remote data sampling/monitoring (on the one extreme) and periodic manual visual inspection of operations (on the other extreme). This sweet spot is often found with periodic or intermittent remote monitoring. In a large number of operations, the transmission of hourly or daily data provides more than enough information to greatly improve operational KPIs while, at the same time, significantly reduces direct O&M expenses.
LoRaWAN
Volley Boast uses a very long range and very low power radio technology called LoRa to set up low cost wide area private networks (using LoRaWAN). The low power nature of the radio and the intermittent data sampling makes it possible to power the radio and the connected sensors for more than a year (and in many cases multiple years) with two D-sized batteries. Data from operations that were previously too expensive to monitor can now be cost effectively collected.
The standards for LoRa and LoRaWAN are overseen by the LoRa Alliance. Further details on the technology can be found at https://lora-alliance.org.
VoBo Node
The VoBo Node gathers data from:
- Analog sensors (4-20 mA, 0-10 V, 0-5 V, 0-3 V)
- Digital Sensors
- RS 485 Serial (Modbus) communications
The VoBo Node can be programmed to:
- Collect and transmit data on customer defined cycles
- Back up data locally
- Wake up out of cycle to take additional readings when triggered by an event
- Perform edge of network analytics
The VoBo Node sends the data to the Multitech Conduit
Multitech Conduit
- Powered by 12 to 24-volt dc from utility power or solar panels with battery back-up
- Collects data from 10 to 100’s of VoBo Nodes
- Manages the network of VoBo Nodes
- Forwards the data to Azure Cloud over ethernet, cellular, or satellite transmission
Please visit Mulitech’s site to learn more about the Conduit
VoBo Customer Portal
- Built with Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform
- Sensor data stored in secure, redundant database
- Custom analytics processed in the cloud
- Proprietary charts and reports per customer specs
- Alerts and alarms management
