Metering gateways

Outpost Central and Sierra Wireless have introduced a series of wireless communication solutions for smart utility metering, enabling utilities to collect data on energy and water consumption, and consumers to make choices about their energy use.

Based on the Fastrack Supreme Wireless CPU from Sierra Wireless, a programmable application hosting platform with cellular modem capabilities, the company has developed a range of GPRS/EDGE metering gateways, designed to provide the real-time information on water and energy resources.

The CPU is programmable via any combination of AT commands, ANSI C/C++ and Lua. It is supplied with an open-standard interface that allows developers to add supplementary I/O connectivity and functionalities as expansion cards.

By designing custom expansion cards, three compact metering solutions, each with different physical hardware interfaces to meters and sensors, have been created.

The Outpost Aura-MG industrial meter logger is a 3-channel GPRS/EDGE data logger, with one channel each for a pulse-output meter, a 0-20 mA sensor and an NTC temperature probe.

The Aura-AG industrial RS485/232 module is an industrial intelligent web-connected data logger with terminal blocks. It contains a Modbus logger for registers on Modbus slave devices connected via RS232 or RS485 and sends logged data periodically to the web server for analysis.

The Wavenis GSM/GPRS gateway connects Coronis Wavenis meters and sensors directly to servers over the internet via the GPRS/EDGE communication capabilities of the Fastrack Supreme.