A renowned South Korean air conditioning equipment manufacturer is using Advantech’s ADAM-3600 and ADAM-4000 series products in its quest to develop automated monitoring of office AC systems.
Central air conditioning is one of the most power-intensive systems in office buildings. Traditional AC systems are typically serviced through manual labour. but keeping up with usage in all sections of the system can be a challenge, and a lapse in attention can lead to excessive electricity bills. This situation prompts many building operators to set up remote monitoring systems for central AC systems.
The project
Recently, the manufacturer embraced cloud computing technology to design auxiliary equipment for central AC systems in office buildings. By incorporating a cloud solution, the company hoped to enhance efficiency, analysis and prediction by gathering comprehensive data from dispersed subsystems.
To develop a central AC remote monitoring system on their privately built cloud platform, the company required remote terminal units (RTUs), I/O modules, and software tools necessary for uploading information about the AC’s main unit and over 100 subsystems to the cloud. The company was also responsible for receiving all commands sent down from the system; giving building managers and users the capacity to monitor multiple indoor units online.
The system design and implementation
The manufacturer implemented a range of components from Advantech, including:
- ADAM-3600: Wireless Intelligent RTU with 8x AI, 8x DI, 4x DO and 4-Slots Expansion
- ADAM-3624: 4-ch Analog Output ADAM-3600 Extension Module
- ADAM-4018: 8-ch Thermocouple Input Module
- ADAM-4053: 16-ch Digital Input Module
The project required three functional areas: data collection, pre-processing, and transmission. To meet the project needs, Advantech provided a comprehensive solution including the ADAM-3600 remote terminal unit, WISE-PaaS/EdgeLink edge intelligence core software, the ADAM3624 analog output module, custom Advantech RS-485 communication modules, the ADAM-4018 temperature measurement module, and the ADAM-4053 digital input module. Each floor’s ADAM-4018 and ADAM4053 were responsible for collecting data from over 200 AC subsystems throughout the entire building and sending the data to the ADAM-3600.
The ADAM-3600 – installed in the central AC main unit room – performed data collection from the main AC unit. All data was sent into the WISEPaaS/EdgeLink, built-in with the ADAM-3600, for communication protocol conversion, before being sent to a remote monitoring system in private cloud via a wireless network. From there, the system gathered data according to the API format defined by Advantech. Additionally, the digital output channel with built-in ADAM-3600 and the analog output provided by the expansion module ADAM-3624, ran commands sent from the system.
Esis Industrial Electronics in Sydney provides complete integrated solutions using Advantech’s ADAM-3600 and ADAM-4000 series products, integrating wireless communication (including 4G), data acquisition, scaling and conversion, and logic control functions, plus cloud based data logging with customisable dashboards. This versatile system can be adapted to suit diverse applications such as weather stations, industrial monitoring, or 3 phase power data logging.
ESIS Industrial Electronics offers a range of industrial computing solutions, including rugged tablets, data loggers, industrial displays, integrated computing platforms and programmable interfaces for direct PLC integration. Talk to us about solutions to keep your business operations running efficiently.
Article courtesy of Advantech.
