Asset Monitoring for Power Transmission Towers

Overview

Challenge: Global Warming and Vandalism Risk Critical Power Transmission Assets

High voltage power transmission networks are made of high rising metal towers (pylons) that span vast distances along diverse terrain. Global warming creates increasingly extreme weather conditions that risk the proper ongoing operation of these critical infrastructure assets, while intentional sabotage such as transformer vandalism and fiber or copper theft leads to prolonged power outages, as well as heavy financial losses.

These threats mean that there’s an increased need for proper monitoring of power transmission towers, however, the most advanced inspection method currently in use relies on visual aerial images, typically collected by helicopters. The problem with this method is that it’s costly, time-consuming and isn’t sufficient to provide actual updated information.

Solution: RAD’s Secure IIoT Gateway for Transmission Tower Monitoring

RAD’s ruggedized SecFlow IIoT Gateway is installed on each transmission tower (pylon), serving as an all-in-one connectivity and Edge Computing unit and featuring all necessary functionalities for a secure, effective and economical asset monitoring:

• WAN and sensor connectivity: LoRa, fiber, LTE radio, WiFi Halow
• Sensors
• Docker-based IoT agent
• Solar-based battery pack