Mesh Networks to Boost Energy

Under a contract with the U.S. Department of
Energy (DoE), a trio of companies will use wireless mesh networks to increase energy
efficiency and reduce industrial motor energy consumption.

General Electric is leading the way with Sensicast Systems and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
in a project that is part
of the DoE’s $61 million “Industries of the Future” program. The program employs a 50/50
cost share component, which means the DoE and industry partners share risks equally.

The three-year, $6 million program has three phases. First, the group will conduct a feasibility
study between now and the end of the year to understand technical
challenges. During the second phase, which will start next January and continue
throughout the year, the groups will build prototype systems and complete
proof-of-concept experiments. Finally, the groups will install a complete system
at a test site and collect and analyze operational data.

Wireless mesh networking is not yet an 802.11 standard, but it has been
under development
for some time.

In a true mesh topology, every node has a connection to every other node
in the network. There are two types of mesh topologies: full mesh and
partial mesh.

Full mesh topology occurs when every node has a circuit connecting it to
every other node in a network. Full mesh is expensive to implement, but
yields the greatest amount of redundancy — in the event that one of those
nodes fails, network traffic can be directed to any of the other nodes. Full
mesh is usually reserved for backbone networks.

Partial mesh topology is less expensive to implement and yields less
redundancy than full mesh topology. With partial mesh, some nodes are
organized in a full mesh scheme, but others are only connected to one or two nodes in the network. Partial mesh topology is commonly found in peripheral
networks connected to a full meshed backbone.

“Wireless sensor networks have the potential to provide cost-effective
new technology to dramatically increase energy efficiency throughout
industry,” Dan Sexton, project leader at GE Global Research, said in a
statement. “GE’s vision for the future includes using wireless sensor
technology in a wide variety of industrial and consumer applications to
improve the way we monitor, protect and control the world around us.”

In the GE/Sensicast/RPI model, wireless sensors will be installed on
selected motors in a plant operation. The sensors will monitor functions
critical to each motor’s condition and efficiency based on a combination of
measurements, such as vibration, temperature and power quality. The data
will then be transmitted wirelessly to a computer that analyzes the data
from each sensor. Any potential problems will be transmitted to plant personnel
via phone, pager or e-mail in advance, allowing
plant personnel to repair or replace motors before their production capacity
drops or they fail entirely.

GE and the others are expected to start by analyzing the efficiency of
industrial motors, which use 65 percent of the total electricity consumed by
U.S. industry. They are used in virtually every industrial and manufacturing
process, ranging from large pumps for municipal water plants to compressors
that transport fuel through pipelines to simple air conditioning units.

Sensicast is providing the mesh networking software that eliminates
signal interference and joins the wireless network into the existing plant
network. Meantime, RPI is developing physics-based models for analysis and
lifetime prediction of the motors.

“Electric motor driven systems consume 23 percent of all electricity used
in the United States — a truly staggering number,” Sensicast CEO Paul Sereiko said
in a statement. “Working with GE and the
Department of Energy to deploy smart wireless mesh networking technology for
improving these motors’ energy efficiency is a real world example of
technology making a significant difference.”

There are two major advantages of the technology being developed for this
program, according to the consortium. The first is a low-power
communications network that will operate in an industrial environment for
years on a single battery.

The second advantage is that the two-way
communications network will enable the use of control applications. For
example, if a monitoring system is being used on a generator and has sent
notification that it is running too hot, the monitoring personnel could
issue wireless commands back to the generator for it to turn on its exhaust
fan.

Other applications under development include process
monitoring and control, asset tracking, and patient monitoring.

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