Applications
Applications

Energy Visibility, Analysis, and Optimization

Arch Rock's Energy Optimizer™ product suit brings together fine grained energy measurement and verification with real-time data visibility, analysis, goal-setting, and notifications in a non-disruptive, easily deployed, Internet standards-based, wireless networking system for facility managers and operations managers who want to see when and where their energy is being used, what it yields, and what to do next to reduce its use. AR Energy Optimizer has applications in the following areas.

Commercial Office buildings

Utility companies around the world are offering substantial financial incentives to businesses to reduce power and water usage, especially at times of high demand. But, a typical office building has a varied electrical load structure, with the total demand split between HVAC, IT equipment and wiring closets, lighting, and wall receptacles. How can the facility manager decide to participate in the utility's Demand Response program without knowing which loads can be shed most effectively and with minimum impact? AREO can provide that visibility before and during the load shedding events.

Data Centers

One of the largest users of power in many IT centered businesses is the data center. The data center facilities managers know instinctively that their CRAC and CRAH units can be tuned to improve their Power Utilization Efficiency. What is lacking is hard data. AREO provides continuous monitoring and visualization of the power and temeprature together in space and time to enable the facility managers to tune their data centers with confidence.

Industrial Facilities

Manufacturing and industrial facilities have some of the biggest monthly utility bills. A large part of the bill is peak demand surcharges or higher Time-Of-Use electricity rates. The facility manager and the VP of Operations suspect that time-shifting their processes could deliver a big savings. But how can they see which measures will deliver the biggest benefit without impacting total productivity? AREO can provide that visibility at a minimal cost.

Government Buildings

Federal and state governments are incentivizing as well as mandating aggressive energy reduction targets. In addition, effective sub-metering is required to demonstrate those reductions. AREO can provide the fine-grained visibility required to plan, implement and continuously reduce a governement facility's energy and resource use year-over-year till the mandates are met.

Arch Rock PhyNet™ System

Arch Rock's PhyNet products and technology enable a wide-variety of sensor networking solutions that target a diverse set of industries. Because of the company's deep expertise at all levels of the technology stack, from microcontrollers and radios to web services, we are able to deliver innovative solutions that allow enterprises to quickly develop sensor applications that seamlessly integrate into an existing IT infrastructure. Arch Rock has delivered products and technology in the following application areas.

Environmental Monitoring

With energy costs on the rise and "green" mandates moving from discussion to public policy, companies are being forced to find better and more efficient ways to manage the environmental conditions around them. Wireless sensor networks provide a path to energy efficiency because they provide the ability to measure monitor places and things that were once impossible or impractical to instrument. With WSN technology from Arch Rock a data center operator can now know the exact temperature or humidity levels ANYWHERE in the room and then fine tune the energy consumption as needed. Arch Rock offers environmental monitoring solutions in the following areas:

  • Automotive Field Testing
  • Building Commissioning
  • HVAC optimization
  • Data Center Monitoring
  • Cold chain monitoring

Industrial Automation

Global competition, health and safety regulations, process efficiency, these are just some of the issues facing today's plant operators and industrial organizations. Before you can optimize, you first have to have to measure. Wireless sensor networks offer insight and information from the previously inaccessible. The cost of instrumentation is dramatically reduced as there is no need to run wire or heavily instrument an area. Once deployed, solutions from Arch Rock can detect problems before they happen and prevent costly failures or outages. Furthermore, once instrumented, new information and data can be collected that can keep machinery running longer and without direct human intervention. Arch Rock offers industrial automation solutions in the following areas:

  • Machine Monitoring
  • Process Control
  • Predictive Maintenance
  • Regulatory Compliance

Precision Agriculture

Management of high-value crops such as wine grapes and citrus fruits has always been an art, with many of the factors affecting the success of a harvest being judged by rules of thumb and tradition rather than hard data. Instruments for measurement have been available but are usually off-line data loggers, the visibility to their data coming too late to affect the outcome. Arch Rock's N4X family of products brings this data online "24x7" and makes it instantly accessible over the Internet. Here is a case study.

Action and Control

Once deployed, wireless sensor nodes are able to actuate and control in addition to sensing. This dual capability allows for a rich set of applications to be built on top of the existing network. Now that data can be captured and processed, logic can be imposed in the system to allow operating rules to be implemented and enforced. In a building lighting application, a single location can be lighted rather than an entire room saving money and resources in the process. Machine tolerances and operating standards can be combined to automate machine rooms and heavy equipment.

  • Lighting control
  • Machine automation