CERN LHC Technical Infrastructure Monitoring (TIM)

The CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will start to deliver particles to its experiments in the year 2005. However, all the primary services such as electricity, cooling, ventilation, safety systems and others such as vacuum and cryogenics will be commissioned gradually between 2001 and 2005. This technical infrastructure will be controlled using industrial control systems, which have either already been purchased from specialized companies or are currently being put together for tender. This paper discusses the overall architecture and interfaces that will be used by the CERN Technical Control Room (TCR) to monitor the technical services at CERN and those of the LHC and its experiments. The issue of coherently integrating existing and future control systems over a period of five years with constantly evolving technology is addressed. The paper also summarizes the functionality of all the tools needed by the control room such as alarm reporting, data logging systems, man machine interfaces and the console manager. Particular attention is paid to networking aspects, so that reliable and timely transmission of data can be assured. A pyramidal layered component architecture is compared with a complete SCADA solution

Mechano-Magnetic Telemetry For Urban Infrastructure Monitoring

Many cities seek utilities monitoring with centrally managed Internet of Things (IoT) systems. This requires the development of numerous reliable low-cost wireless sensors, such as water temperature and flow meters, that can transmit information from subterranean pipes to surface-mounted receivers. Traditional radio communication systems are either unable to penetrate through multiple feet of earthen and manmade material, or have impractically large energy requirements which necessitate either frequent replacement of batteries, or a complex (and expensive) built-in energy harvesting system. Magnetic signaling systems do not suffer from this drawback: low-frequency electromagnetic waves have been shown to penetrate well through several feet of earth and water. In the past, these signals were too weak for practical use; however, this has changed with the recent proliferation of high-sensitivity magnetometers and compact rare-earth magnets. A permanent magnet can be either rotated or vibrated to create an oscillating magnetic field. Utilizing this phenomenon, two types of magnetic transmitter are investigated in this study: one which uses a propeller to directly rotate a diametrically magnetized neodymium magnet; and a second in which a permanent magnet is oscillated back-and-forth across a novel soft-magnet Y-stator, which projects a switching magnetic field. In principle, these oscillating magnetic fields can be used for communication from subterranean infrastructure sensors—such as flow meters and leak detection devices—to an aboveground long range (LoRa) radio-networked Arduino receiver equipped with a magnetometer. Simulation software models the oscillating electromagnetic fields produced by the Y-stator configuration. Laboratory performance and field tests establish the capability of two IoT-linked leak-detection sensors that use magnetic telemetry. Remote datalogging demonstrates the viability of integrating many sensors and surface receivers into a single LoRa wireless IoT network