Featured Wireless Mesh Networking Applications

Refrigerated semi-trailers containing food and other goods that need to be kept cold have unique constraints that can be a challenge for a trucking company. For example, a trucking company needs to be able to ensure and even prove that its cargo was kept within a certain temperature range during transit. A damaged refrigeration unit, an open door, or mechanical problems with the vehicle can prove to be catastrophic for a refrigerated shipment. Transportation managers need to be able to remotely access a variety of system and sensor data on a refrigerated semi-trailer truck, such as cargo temperature, door and hitch sensors, vehicle diagnostics and real-time location. Wireless mesh network technology makes it possible for transportation companies to remotely monitor multiple data points on a single truck in real-time and can extend that monitoring ability out to an entire fleet of vehicles.

By outfitting a truck and trailer with a variety of temperature, pressure, proximity and mechanical sensors connected to a ZigBee or SNAP embedded RF modules, the trucking company is able to create a self-discovering wireless mesh network on the truck. A gateway with onboard GPS receives data from each of the sensors and the vehicle bus interface (J1939 or J1708). The gateway sends this information back to a central location over a cellular network when it is on the road or through a Wi-Fi connection when it reaches its destination. Once the fleet data is stored on servers, the company writes a custom application to organize the data and provide real-time alerts via email or SMS when critical events are triggered on the semi-trailer truck. Some of the key benefits of using Wireless Mesh Networking technology:

• Early diagnosis and repair of maintenance issues protects against loss and minimizes downtime.
• Self-forming wireless mesh network allows the pairing of different trucks and trailers and requires no additional work.
• Data is easily accessible to a variety of stakeholders.

Accuracy in measuring ingredients and maintaining specific temperature, pressure and mixing times is critical to product consistency and quality. Tank sensors measuring volume, temperature, pressure, pH levels and other metrics are wirelessly-enabled using ZigBee or SNAP Radios. These ZigBee or SNAP enabled sensors create a secure, reliable Wireless mesh network. The ZigBee or SNAP topology increases a network's redundancy, ensuring greater reliability. Data from each tank in the brewery is relayed from the ZigBee or SNAP -enabled sensors to a Gateway over an existing Wi-Fi network. Using an on-site broadband connection, this collected information is sent to the Internet-based cloud where it can be accessed from anywhere in the world using a secure login. Building simple front-end applications allows the brewery operations staff to receive regular updates via a website, email or SMS to monitor the brewing process and provide real-time alerts when parameters fall outside a pre-determined range.