July 18, 2018 – Microsoft Inspire – Advantech, Behr Technologies (BTI), Hitachi Solutions America, and Microsoft announced that the companies are collaborating to deliver wireless communications solutions with scalability, and security for private industrial internet of things (IIoT) networks. Since no single technology provider can enable IIoT alone, this joint effort will provide a mass-market, end-to-end wireless gateway solution to ensure connectivity with sensors for production-level industrial and commercial applications. The solution will deliver scalability, building penetration, integration and interoperability with legacy systems.
This collaboration aims to meet demand in the marketplace for out-of-the-box wireless IIoT communications solutions to connect the various sensors used by industrial and commercial customers in their business intelligence efforts. The foundation for the joint effort is BTI MIOTY, a low-power, wide-area network (LPWAN) communications solution that uses the ETSI standard telegram splitting ultra-narrow band (TS-UNB) technical specification for throughput networks, enabling organizations to deploy private IoT sensor networks. Using industry-standard Advantech gateways, BTI MIOTY will transmit up to 1.5 million messages per day within a radius of five to 15 kilometers, with no carrier requirements.
Layered atop this infrastructure, Hitachi Solutions’ IoT Service Hub will enable organizations to connect and monitor devices and analyze the data in real time to improve operational efficiencies. The first application resulting from this collaboration is an approach to workforce safety using the BTI MIOTY LPWAN wireless solution on an industry-standard gateway. Using a wearable device to monitor the heart rate of workers in industrial high-risk environments, data on the health of hundreds of workers is transmitted over unlicensed, sub-gigahertz frequencies via BTI MIOTY to a single Advantech base station.
From there, it is communicated to the Microsoft Cloud, where Hitachi Solutions’ IoT Service Hub can provide actionable insights on workers’ health and send alerts when workers are in danger.
