Telemetry

• Uses• Benefits• Types

– VHF radio, (UHF)– Satellite receiving– Cellphone & satphone

• Flosys software• Internet data transmission

Benefits of telemetry

Benefits of Telemetry• Save time and money in travelling• Know if the station is working correctly• Know if the battery voltage is OK• Know what is happening – flood, low flow,

level, raining, rating change?• Flood warning (or forecasting)• Data users’ needs – as above

– water management for hydro power, water supply, irrigation, pollution detection

– use the data immediately

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Dog Is at 09-Oct-2002 07:05:01 NZST

RawTide

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SSIB

Tai Ping (urea carrier)grounding at Bluff

Types of telemetry transmission

• Landline• Cellphone• VHF or UHF radio• Satellite receiving systems• Satellite phone (satphone)

Cellphone telemetry

• Can use GSM and GPRS (general packet radio service) - used by Vodaphone & others

• Also CDMA (code division multiple access) -used by Telecom NZ and others

• Hardware - data phones and modems are relatively cheap – well under $NZ 1000

• Costs per call, so expensive if many calls made

• Limited to areas with cellphone coverage

Cellphone telemetry

Satellite receiving station telemetry

• Needs to be part of a large established systems mainly through USA

• One-way transmission only (data acquisition)

• Data path usually needs to go through another country

• Tends to be expensive, slow

Satphone telemetry

• Operation similar to cellphone telemetry but – More expensive - phone hardware and

calls more expensive– Will work from almost anywhere in the

world• Costs are coming down gradually• Some technical issues still, but are

improving

VHF radio telemetry

• Requires radio system usually with repeaters in required locations

• Repeaters usually expensive - $20,000 upwards

• Economics – use when cheaper methods not possible

Aquitel

• Developed in NZ in early 1980s

• Still operating well in NZ & Fiji

• Replacement is underway as components now obsolete

Telemetry: Flosys

Telemetry: Flosys

• Flosys is a multi-user telemetry system with an integrated database

• It was first deployed in 1981 and has been continuously developed since then

• Flosys is used to telemeter over 1000 stations in New Zealand

• Flosys is developed by NIWA (National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research).

Flosys Client

• Flosys Client (also known as Flosys for Windows) allows multi-user access to the telemetry system

• As many people as you want can access and use the telemetry

• Flosys Client has a map based interface to the telemetry

Flosys data retrieval

• Flosys calls the data logger, if an interrogation fails (due to noise/ interference), the data is retrieved on the next polling

• Data retrieval can be automatic or manual.

• The data since the last call is retrieved. If you call once a day, a whole day of data is retrieved. If you call up every hour, an hour of data is retrieved.

• This results in the data record being continuous

Dataloggers

Flosys works with, amongst others,

•Unidata

•Campbell Scientific

•Design Analysis Associates (DAA)

•Other brands on request

Alarms

• Alarms can be triggered by the data logger transmitting an alarm back to Flosys, or by Flosys scanning the retrieved data

• Alarm messages can be sent out to users by

• Email

• Text message

• Autodialler

• Over a network to the telemetry client software

Database

• Data is stored automatically in the Tideda database

TDServer

• Internet transmission of data

• Can automatically compare and update two Tideda databases via the internet

• Can be used to collect data on one computer and transfer it to another computer anywhere else (connected to internet

• Distance no problem - just needs internet on-line and software

• Many uses – real-time data transfer, data backup, distance no problem