Verona water supply, Italy
Wireless technology in the Lessinia mountainous region
The company has 60 wells and over 1000 km of water pipes. The control of metering devices and intake plants is based on an ultra-modern remote control and automation system from Phoenix Contact, which features Trusted Wireless RAD-ISM 2400 modules.
The application
There is a general shortage of water in the Lessinia region due to its karstic structure, and control of the water pipe network is difficult. AGSM Verona S.p.A. has been using a modern remote control and automation system for a few years now, which detects the status in realtime of each individual network parameter - tank capacity, flow rates, pressure, pump status - and enables operation via remote control.
In addition, the AGSM Verona S.p.A. has already set up an operative control center in the seventies from which communication is possible via own and rented copper standard lines via GSM technology using the periphery devices via telephone dial-up lines. Within the scope of a technical and economical optimization, the automation system now needs to be replaced.
Another challenge: Every decentral station of the control center must function without a problem even in the case of a connection failure. A reliable data transmission between the stations and the control room as well as the communication between individual system parts must be guaranteed. All external stations even those that are not easily accessible where one cannot access installed telecom lines can be integrated into the system economically.
Solution
Why was wireless communication opted for? The installation was easy since the RAD-ISM 2400 can be integrated into the existing structures without any problem.
Reliable signal transmission was attained using suitable antennas. The bidirectional wireless transmission system uses the 2.4 GHz frequency.
The GSM base station enables the transmission of two digital on/off signals and one analog signal in mA, whereby the number of signals can be increased thanks to an integrated bus connector by simply adding extension modules. An alarm is automatically triggered if a signal does not reach once.
Summary
"For us, this project was an extraordinarily technological challenge and it was thus extremely important for us to rely on the support of an experienced company", explained Luca Bortolameazzi, responsible for the automation of water systems at AGSM.
"The technical personnel at Phoenix Contact were actively involved in the test phases and were able to identify possible causes for faults at an early stage.
We were very impressed with the transparent approach to the work and reliable execution of our requirements."