Polysense Technologies, an enterprise IoT solutions provider for fiber and wireless sensing, has built
Semtech’s LoRa devices and wireless radio frequency technology (LoRa Technology) into its Structure Health Monitoring (SHM) system to enable remote and real-time monitoring of building structure safety and integrity.
"With LoRa-based wireless sensors and gateways, we can get a building connected within a couple of hours by eliminating the need for power wiring installation. In comparison, a wired solution could take around a week to install,” said Will H. Yu, Director of IoT solutions at Polysense Technologies.
"The key for us is to utilize the power of IoT to solve real problems. With our SHM solution, resource issues are properly addressed, while, most importantly, providing urgent information to protect citizens from danger," Yu added.
Polysense’s SHM system consists of various LoRa-based IoT sensors, a LoRa-based gateway and a proprietary cloud-based data management platform. A four to six-story building is equipped with an end-to-end solution consisting of several sensors on the walls and roof to measure building surface wall crack growth, tilt and vibration. Typically, one gateway is used per residential complex.
Often a soil moisture sensor is placed to monitor water saturation at the building’s foundation, at a fractional cost of the traditional wired solution or human inspection, according to Semtech.
In addition, Polysense provides the LoRaWAN-based network and mobile applications for real-time monitoring of building status.
Polysense recently partnered with AEIDO, a Chinese company offering structural safety inspections, certification and monitoring services, to roll out hundreds of SHM systems in Shaoxing, a city on China’s east coast which is particularly vulnerable to the elements.
"Semtech’s LoRa technology offers flexibility and easy deployment into a wide range of infrastructure, both old and new,” said Vivek Mohan, Director of IoT for Semtech’s Wireless and Sensing Products Group. “Scalable by increasing the number of gateways, solutions built on LoRa Technology can cover the tallest skyscrapers and sprawling campuses.”
LoRa in commercial buildings
LoRa technology’s ability to handle many sensors in a dense environment also make it a popular protocol choice for large smart building networks
YoSmart, a high-tech enterprise company focused on smart home and life products, is also integrating Semtech’s LoRa technology into its new line of products for enterprise and commercial smart building IoT applications.
YoSmart’s newest series of LoRa-enabled products include thermostats, sprinkler controllers, door locks, leakage monitors and smoke alarms. These devices connect to a building’s network and allow consistent, remote monitoring to better conserve energy and predict when maintenance is necessary, saving property managers money.
The solution provides large buildings like campuses and hotels with flexible solutions to maximize efficiency.
“Semtech’s LoRa Technology for enterprise buildings can connect many different applications under the same network – from thermostats to security systems. This allows for convenient oversight by the property managers, and smarter solutions to cut down on expenses due to utility waste or maintenance,” said Semtech’s Mohan.
Semtech’s LoRa devices and wireless RF technology
Semtech’s LoRa devices and wireless radio frequency technology is a widely adopted long-range, low-power solution for IoT that gives telecom companies, IoT application makers and system integrators the feature set needed to deploy low-cost, interoperable IoT networks, gateways, sensors, module products and IoT services worldwide.
IoT networks based on the LoRaWAN specification have been deployed in 100 countries and Semtech is a founding member of the LoRa Alliance, a fast-growing IoT Alliance for Low Power Wide Area Network applications.