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....Monitoring Remote Locations

One of the most important demands for telemetrysystems in the broadcast sector is to establish a reliablecommunication network. Safety and efficiency are keypriorities, too, whilst organisations have legitimate concernsabout security breaches. In this paper, we propose a methodof creating a ‘smart’ communications infrastructure networkthat performs locally controlled algorithms autonomously toaddress these multiple requirements, as well as notifyingpersonnel when intervention is necessary.

Previously, some monitoring of physical assets may nothave been carried out regularly due to their remote location,

Checking in onremote assetsRemote telemetry units (RTUs) and SCADAsystems have been essential to support theroll out of mobile communications andbroadcasting mediums, especially those inremote locations. Moving from a nice-to-haveto a must-have, remote monitoring of systemsand assets is absolutely necessary in the 21st

century broadcasting sector.

Philippe Aretz, Channel Sales Director, Ovarro (previouslyServelec Technologies)

as this would increase the cost of regular engineer visits orpose health and safety issues for lone working. However,data collection is now viewed as a ‘must have’ compared to a‘nice to have’ whilst serendipitously, remote telemetry units(RTUs) are capable of easy deployment and operating andtransmitting data from any location.

Ultimately, the benefit of using RTUs in the broadcast andtelecoms sector is that it helps to reduce downtime andenables more efficient preventative maintenance scheduling.This is achievable due to the RTU system’s ability to provideaccurate, real time data; allowing management teams to makebetter, more informed decisions. In addition, because RTUsdo everything locally, it means if communications break down,they continue to run and act autonomously, whilst maintaininga historical log, and reporting back later. In remote, harshlocations where many masts are located, communication isliable to fail regularly, although RTU’s can manage this. Forinstance, the data that the RTU collects can be used tosuppor t maintenance decisions, and to verify thatperformance obligations are being adhered to.

It is hardly surprising that in some critical applications,organisations now require the mandatory use of RTUs asthey provide real-time, 24/7 notification of status alarms andsecurity breaches. Irrespective of this, companies in thebroadcast sector have long specified RTUs because of thebenefits the device offers them in terms of achieving theirgoal of improving service to customers.

RTUs can be deployed on a wide range of equipmentfrom masts, control panels and security measures throughto electrical gear. Once in place they monitor electrical current,temperature, smoke, power, and humidity and relay thisinformation to the cloud where it can be analysed and trended,providing operators with a high degree of predictivemaintenance capabilities. Where power supply from the grid

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....Monitoring Remote Locations

is not available, they can incorporate intelligent managementof power consumption as well as battery or solar poweroptions.

The real value of an RTU is that it can performautonomous control in real time and then report to SCADAon current status. Operators at the SCADA interface can‘supervise’ the operations by setting new KPIs (Set Points)or updating instructions (open/close this, start/stop that, forexample) for RTUs to then act upon and manage locally.These developments in RTU functionality make themparticularly suited to the broadcast sector because they offerresilience to the site environment, have an ability to operatewith minimal drain on local power resources, whilst retainingthe processing power to perform local control algorithmsautonomously.

Project file: European cellular networkOur TBox RTU technology has been used by one of ourpartners in Europe on a project with a major Europeantelecoms company as part of its commitment to improvequality of service to its customers. The main scope of theproject was to optimize and replace obsolete RTUs. Theywere also looking to optimize and control the equipment andinstallation of a large set (several hundreds) of broadcastingcentres with a single solution; replace obsolete RTUs fromother manufacturers with a platform that is scalable, robust,industrial, multi-protocol and redundant with local history;support at a local and national level; and provide new data

acquisition functionalities and automation not previouslyavailable.

The company required a telemetry solution that provided;modularity, sturdiness, compact size, open and standardtelecontrol protocols (IEC-60870-5-104, DNP3), logicprogramming and strong cyber security capabilities. Followinga careful evaluation of several alternative options, theyspecified TBox MS and TWinSoft configuration tool becauseit was felt to be a highly resilient and secure automationplatform for their critical and demanding SCADA applications.In combination, these technologies allow users to completetheir applications and dynamically control communication,alarms, data logging and logic locally or remotely in a fullysecure environment. The modular construction of the remotetelemetry unit also meant that it matched their technical andfunctional requirements

The protocols used; IEC-60870-5-104, SNMP, ModbusRTU/TCP, were chosen to allow the management ofdownstream communication with the equipment, sensors, andbroadcasting devices, as well as to interact upstream withthe SCADA control centre. These kinds of solution are suitablefor mobile telephony infrastructure, audio-visual broadcastingnetworks, smart cities, IoT and security.

This customer went on to deploy the technology in over300 sites and continues to deploy it at other locations.

‘Smart’ telecoms assetsCompanies in the broadcast sector are demanding more, and

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‘smarter,’ information and as a result, RTUs will be deployedin greater numbers. It’s worth bearing in mind that currentlymost RTUs are only used for operations, although they cansupport maintenance teams, health and safety initiatives andenvironmental management.

As networks grow and increase in size through moreconnected devices, managing the greater number of assetswill become increasingly difficult through traditional, non-technology methods such as scheduled service engineervisits.

Mergers between companies that span continents andsharing of assets such as masts will require a technologicalapproach because central management will increasinglyrequire remote data collection. Set against this is the factthat RTUs are a cost-effective way of collecting large amountsof data, meaning a relatively low investment cost for thebenefits they deliver will make them a more attractiveproposition on a wider range of assets.

Advances in RTU technologies such as signaltransmission methods, cloud, Smart Data Analytics andSmart / Intelligent Smart Sensors, Industrial Interest of Things(IIOT) 4.0, Cloud Data Analytics, Digital Twin Narrow Bandand Cyber Security, will also extend functionality andencourage greater uptake. Likewise, cyber security is a majorfocus with technologies like our industrial grade TBox nowincorporating built-in standard ‘cyber-secure’ features suchauthentication, encryption, firewall, SSL/TLS, HTTPS,SMTPS SFTP/FTPS and VPN as well as brute-force attackprotection.

ConclusionWe have looked at the reasons why RTUs are growing inpopularity in the broadcast sector and why they are necessary.The benefits were illustrated through the case file that lookedat a European-based cellular network business.

RTUs have come a long way in the last few years and asbroadcast companies face continued pressure to maintainefficiency, security and network coverage, their use looksset to increase. Continued innovation will help drive thischange; it is already possible to deploy RTUs on a wide rangeof broadcast equipment, whatever its size or age.

Inbuilt redundancy and resilience are helping too, avoidingsystem failures.

At the same time, improvements in processing power andthroughput mean RTUs keep up with increasing demand fordata.

Looking to the future, RTUs, which are already highlyreliable ‘mini PCs in the field,’ will help harness the power ofIIoT by making older assets ‘smart.’ Edge Computing willcome into the mix at some stage, although increasedprocessing power of RTUs means they are already part of adistributed network, processed at the ‘edge’ of the network.

With broadcast’s geographically spread assets andmultiple process that all generate massive amounts of data,key to ensuring these improvements is being able to captureand interpret it in real-time.

Latest, ruggedized RTU technology focuses specificallyon that, helping operators meet their investor and customercommitments.

Monitoring Remote Locations....

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