Autonomous measuring

There is no life without water. In order to reach the consumer, this precious substance must sometimes travel great distances through long pipelines and be accurately monitored and measured. But the more remote corners of our planet in particular often lack the external power sources that the measurement instruments need to do their job, not to mention cables for transmitting the measurement values.

Added to that is the challenge of transmitting those measurement values over long distances. “We developed a completely wireless measurement instrument specifically for these application scenarios,” explains Matthias Reist, product manager at Endress+Hauser. “Thanks to the battery, the Promag W 800 enables flexible and autonomous operation even in off-grid locations, because it requires no external power source and has a maintenance-free service life of up to 15 years.”

In order to reliably transmit the measurement data, and conversely receive other data, the instrument also features an integrated mobile communications module. “This gives the water provider remote access to the measurement values from anywhere in the world, regardless of how distant the measuring point is from the control center,” reports Matthias Reist.

Despite a high degree of technical sophistication, the developers were able to keep the dimensions of the entire system, including the electronics, battery, data logger and wireless module, extremely compact. That means the electromagnetic instrument can also be easily integrated where space is scarce, such as in distribution networks with large numbers of densely packed pipelines.

Key data from the Promag W 800 stands to play a major role in future: according to projections by the United Nations, irrigation demand in agriculture alone will grow 50 percent by the year 2050. So the capability to precisely monitor and calculate consumption of drinking and process water will be increasingly important. With measurement instruments such as the Promag W 800, Endress+Hauser is supporting the creation of active water management systems around the world for monitoring and controlling the distribution of this valuable commodity.