Final ReportSummary - SYNCSEN (Ultra-low Power Wireless Sensor Network for Metering Applications)
Under the 2002 Kyoto Protocol, EU Member States have committed to the reduction of collective emissions of the six key greenhouse gases by at least 5 % by 2012. Additionally, countries such as the United Kingdom (UK) are under even greater pressure because of the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) and Energy Efficiency Scheme which came into effect in April 2010, and which requires companies to reduce carbon emissions by 80 % by 2050.
Utility companies are among the largest CO2 emitters. Smart grids and smart meters will play a critical role in helping utility companies reduce their carbon emissions, allowing them to manage their distribution grids more efficiently. This requires less power to be generated, creating fewer emissions and reducing the frequency and duration of outages.
53 million automatic electric meter readers have been deployed throughout Europe over the past five years. They enable customer electricity usage to be quantified on a daily basis, enabling accurate billing and providing real time consumption information to the customer. Studies have shown that customers using real time consumption data have reduced their electricity use by up to 15 %. As such, automatic meter reading (AMR) provides benefits for the utility companies, their customers, and the environment. AMR was first applied to electricity metering due to the convenience of powering AMR meters from the electricity grid, and because the same grid can be used to send the consumption data from the home to the utility company via power line communications (PLC).
The SYNCSEN consortium SMEs have identified a need to develop a novel AMR system for gas and water utility companies and meter reading companies. The technology will result in significant economic benefits for consortium members in that it is easily adaptable to any meter type, allowing consortium SMEs to address both gas and water sectors. There will be no further need for additional hardware (repeaters). SYNCSEN nodes are battery powered, and have ultra-low power consumption, giving a battery life of 10 years, equal to the lifetime of the meter itself. SYNCSEN is also designed as a retrofit for existing meters, with minimal installation cost.
The shared experience, technical knowledge and capabilities will produce a unique, economic and environmentally friendly solution for accurate reading of meters EU-wide and will enable utility companies to reduce the negative balance in the supply and consumption of gas and water resulting from faulty meter measurements, as well as the negative impacts of energy waste to the environment. This unique product will enable the consortium to compete globally in the growing environmentally-aware and highly competitive European market.
The SYNCSEN technology will contribute to standards as it will spur project partners and other companies towards best practice in conforming to national and European gas and water legislation and Directives. This technology will also make a significant contribution to improving established standards such as the metering bus ('M-bus' for short), which is a field bus standard designed for transmitting metering data from gas, heat, water or other meters to a data collector and described by European Norm (EN 13757).
Project context and objectives:
The aim of SYNCSEN is to provide utility companies with a secure remote meter reading solution to increase company competitiveness and customer satisfaction. It addresses the special needs of home utilities, providing a remote metering solution that is independent of the electricity infrastructure.
The SYNCSEN automated meter reading (AMR) technology provides a cost-effective and ultra-low power consumption solution based on a novel hardware and software approach. The current SYNCSEN radio stack implements protocols which are fully compliant with the EN-13757 standard.
Main features
- Tailored for low cost metering applications
- For urban and rural scenarios as well as all types of buildings
- For new and retrofitting market
- Wireless multi-hop network compliant with the EN 13757 standard
- Ultra Low power consumption (battery life > 10 years)
- Novel synchronised wake-up mechanism
- Ease of installation, with very low maintenance cost
- Secure bidirectional communication for remote and additional utility services
- Optimised solution between small footprint and excellent modularity and scalability.
The scientific objective of this project lies in reducing energy consumption of individual motes and, consequently, of the overall network, without degrading network throughput. This was mainly achieved through the use of external synchronisation (free radio time clocks, available in FM free bands), novel joint-routing and network scheduling mechanisms. As a result, the current SYNCSEN motes have a power consumption < 400 mAh/year when a meter reading data collection is carried out weekly.
The technological objective of this project lies in a reliable solution for many types of metering needs (such as vertical urban scenarios as well as horizontal rural / low density urban scenarios), in particular for those in which access to main-power is not possible or where meter access is difficult by means of developing a low-cost (EUR 10 - 12 /mote for scale production), easy-to-deploy, low-power consumption, wireless and license free ISM band (868 MHz) smart sensor network for automatic home, and business meter reading based on the European Norm (EN 13757). The SYNCSEN network is formed by motes (up to 250) that include: gas or water counter, consumption logger, real-time clock, remote control and configuration (i.e. flexible tariffs, switch on/off, etc.), outage time periods, etc. and mutually collaborate to transmit information to the control centre according to the Wireless M-bus specification.
The need for better relations with the end customer is a key driver for automatic meter reading. Additionally, authorities are constantly setting stricter requirements, customers demanding a higher service level and the need for profitability means that cost-effective solutions are high on the agenda. Two potential markets have been identified and will be targeted by SYNCSEN: manufacturers and distributors of new meters, and the retrofitting market of water and gas metering. SYNCSEN will target almost all households and facilities (urban and rural), as well as the industrial sector, representing an enormous market and diversification to various sectors of the economy.
There were an estimated 2.8 billion meters in the world in 2009. These consisted of 1554 million electricity meters, 395 million gas meters and 856 million water meters (retrofitting market). Growth in market volume will be 3.0 % a year for electricity meters, 4.3 % for gas meters and 7.3 % for water meters (new market). Europe accounts for 12.1 % of all meter demand. There are approximately 523 million meters in the EU, including Norway and Switzerland.
SME partners expect SYNCSEN technology to capture at least 0,05 % of new wireless ARM market in 5 years and also 0.02 % of the retrofit market (using wireless technology) in 5 years. Considering that:
1) an average selling price for a wireless SYNCSEN OEM module will be EUR 10-12 for module manufacturers;
2) an average selling price of EUR 40 - 55 for new smart meters; and
3) an average selling price of EUR 20 - 35 for retrofit device.
The SMEs involved have envisaged that the successful execution of the SYNCSEN project will lead to a total economic impact to be in the region EUR 45 million over a 5-year period, resulting in a return on investment ratio (ROI) of 1:27. The partners consider an investment of EUR 585 000 will be required to ready the design for mass production (including certification) and to cover marketing expenses.
The 'M-bus' is a field bus, which is specialised for transmitting metering data from electrical, gas, heat, water or other meters to a data collector. It is described by a European Norm (EN 13757), which includes the specification of wired and wireless M-bus. M-bus is recognised in many regions of the world as a basis for new advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) installations.
SYNCSEN Wireless M-bus based technology is a powerful tool for supporting innovation and increasing productivity among the consortium SMEs as it is easy to install and maintain. Effective standardisation promotes competitiveness and enhances profitability allowing SMEs to:
1) attract and retain customers;
2) demonstrate market leadership;
3) create competitive advantage;
4) develop and maintain best practices; and
5) comply with European legislation.
SYNCSEN results in greater accuracy in meter reading, facilitating pro-active measures to reduce gas and water consumption and identify water leakage. The technology will also increase the ability of consortium SMEs to comply with gas and water demand management measures being introduced to promote gas and water use efficiency in sectors of major use. This project will also contribute to reducing the environmental impact of the water sector and encouraging conservation by accurately predicting consumer needs. In addition, by providing consumers with near real-time accurate readings of their personal consumption, end users will become more aware of just how much gas and water they are using. As many conservation experts claim, 'If you can measure it, you can improve it!'
Project results:
Work package 1: System specifications
During the first three months of the project, several discussions with the project SMEs were held to determine their needs. After comparing different wireless technologies and the current market solutions everyone agreed that it should be used wireless M-bus as SYNCSEN radio protocol. After evaluating different hardware alternatives, implementation based on CC1101 radio transceiver and MSP430 microcontroller was finally chosen. It was also agreed that TinyOS/TelosB will be used as the starting point for implementing SYNCSEN radio layers according to wireless M-bus specifications.
The wireless M-bus is specified by the European Norm 13757, which is divided in six parts. The correspondence between the OSI model and SYNCSEN wireless M-bus layers is shown in the Annex.
The SYNCSEN main features are detailed next:
- for new and retrofit market;
- permits achieving interoperability with other utility meters according to the EN13757-4 (wireless M-bus) standard;
- compliant with future EU standards / regulations;
- suitable for gas and water meter reading where 4 - 5 readings per month are required;
- ultra low-power consumption (10+ years battery life-time at 1 reading per month);
- fully battery-operated multi-hop network;
- allows gas and water utilities to provide metering services independently (non electric utility dependency);
- network wake-up based on external radio clock signal (RDS time clock service);
- good radio signal penetration at 868 MHz (3 - 4 building floors);
- secure bidirectional communication following adjustable periodic synchronised wake-up;
- based on open source TinyOS / TelosB platform.
The SYNCSEN main limitations are detailed next:
- narrow band single channel at 868 MHz;
- due to the limited channel capacity, real-time services may not be feasible;
- asynchronous forced wake-up not supported (i.e. alarms);
- no timely adaptation to customers demands.
During the key system specification process, the consortium discussed about the technical problems of using a common frequency reference source. Finally, radio broadcast data system (RDS), a standard communication protocol for sending small amounts of digital information using conventional FM radio broadcasts, was adopted as source of external synchronisation for the SYNCSEN network. Due to not all broadcast radio stations support the RDS time clock (TC) service, a survey was carried out to know the present and future availability of the RDS-TC service in the partner countries (the results of this survey can be found in D2 section 6 and in D19 section 2.
Work package 2: Network design and simulation
In WP2, all tasks have been performed to provide the definition of the entire protocol stack of the SYNCSEN network and to provide the evaluation of the SYNCSEN network in different scenarios. The work presented in the deliverables 4 and 6 refers to task 2.1 (RF propagation study), task 2.2 (Design of network protocols), task 2.3 (SYNCSEN network simulator), task 2.4 (Network analysis and optimisation) and task 2.5 (Modelling and evaluation of real scenarios).
As described in D4, the radio layer will use WMBUS mode P as it is the one defined to be used with wireless relaying meters according to the standard. This mode uses Manchester data coding, provides 4.8 Kcps chip-rate, 1 % duty cycle (listen time versus listen plus sleep time) and a working frequency of 868 MHz.
The medium access control (MAC) layer defines that the communication of the meters is based on a duty cycle that means that the meter listens the shared medium at regular intervals in order to find a wake-up signal. Only if a wake-up signal is found the meter will stay awake to receive the data, otherwise it will go to sleep. The meter that wants to send a message should send it preceded with the wake-up signal in order to wake-up the receiver. Observe that, this mode of operation reduces the energy consumption of the meters as they are sleeping when there is no activity in the medium instead of continuously listening to the channel.
The WMBUS at the network layer defines a kind of tree topology in order to send messages from the leaves to the gateway (the data collection unit). Two different modes are specified: the router and the gateway-based approaches. Due to the flexibility of the former, it has been selected for the SYNCSEN network. This decision influences the radio and link layer designs as the mode P of operation should be used in the wireless meters. D4 also provides an overview of the different message formats and the management services of this layer. One important feature that the WMBUS standard does not specify is the creation of the network routes. In this deliverable, two options specially designed for the SYNCSEN network are provided: the 'first path tree' and the 'best path tree'. In both approaches, the data collection unit starts the network (tree) creation, then each wireless meter that receives this information stores and forward it by including its own address in the message. The first path tree is a very simple mechanism in which wireless meters store the first information that arrives and ignore the rest, the tree creation of this approach is extremely quick. On the contrary, in the 'best' path tree wireless meters update the path if 'better' information arrives. They should also notify the update; therefore a new message is generated after a change in the path that makes this mechanism more arduous than the first one. The definition of which is a 'better' path can be based on several factors including number of hops, quality of the links in the path, remaining energy of the meters involved, etc. The best solution depends on the scenario of interest and on the application, remember that in the SYNCSEN network only one message will be sent per collection. The final decision will be based on the simulation results.
D6 contains a detailed specification of the SYNCSEN network simulator developed to analyse the performance of the network. The network simulator models the network as independent modules of wireless meters and the channel; each wireless meter is connected to the channel by means of two ports: one for sending data and the other for receiving data from it. The channel is in charge of sending messages only to those nodes that are in coverage range of the transmitter. A wireless meter module is in turn divided in different modules modelling the protocol stack (application, network, link and radio) and other modules with general functionalities (the battery and mobility modules). The protocol stack simulated follows the WMBUS specification at all the layers involved. At the application layer, a sensing unit is simulated, it forms the message to be sent to the data collection unit. The network layer is in charge of managing the routes to the data collection unit following the routing algorithms described in D4. At the link layer, a B-MAC protocol is simulated, that models the operation of the WMBUS at the medium access control layer. The radio layer is a simple module operating in the 868 MHz band.
Using the simulator described, different performance metrics (throughput, delay, reliability and energy consumption) are obtained for different types of scenarios (a random position of the meters, a building-like scenario and a residential neighbourhood-like scenario). The goal of the evaluation is to obtain in which conditions the network works properly in order to derive optimal configurations, find some critical problems that could appear but also compare the results of the first versus the 'best' path tree routing algorithms described in D4.
D6 also provides optimal configurations (setting a threshold of 95 % reliability) for each scenario considered, the optimal configurations include the use of the first path tree that provides similar results compared to the 'best' path tree with less energy consumption. Moreover, some problems have been found. The first one is a low reliability; the number of messages that are lost in the path to the data collector unit are considerable. The main cause of the data losses is the hidden terminal problem; data from nodes that are not in coverage range collide at the receiver that is not able to receive any of the data sent. Different solutions for alleviating this problem are proposed: increase the maximum retry limit to seven (initially it was set to three) and implement and end-to-end ACK that would allow wireless meters to detect losses in the intermediary routers. Another problem is isolated nodes, due also to hidden terminal problems some nodes are not able to receive the message of tree creation from their neighbours. This problem cannot be alleviated by increasing the maximum retry limit because those messages are sent in broadcast, therefore without the possibility to request an ACK at the link layer. Different solutions to ameliorate this issue should be considered, for instance sensor nodes could store the last path to the data collection unit to the next collection in case they do not receive the new message. Considering the low topology changes that are expected for the SYNCSEN network this solution will effectively solve the problem without involving more energy consumption in maintenance or error messages.
The D6-ANNEX includes a study on radio wave propagation inside buildings at 2.4 GHz and 868 MHz. The goal of this study about propagation at 868 MHz and 2.4 GHz band is to evaluate the most properly band to deploy the SYNCSEN wireless metering networks and understand the impairment that channel propagation can have on a deployed system. In order to validate the election of the 868 MHz band for the SYNCSEN network, 6 tests of 1000 measurements each were done at the UPF installations.
Work package 3: Hardware development
The main objective of WP3 consists in developing and validating the hardware platform that makes up the SYNCSEN network.
The aim of the deliverables 5 and 11 (reports on hardware development) was to provide a platform to carry out the project demonstration and validation tests with specific SYNCSEN hardware configuration, since this type of configuration is not currently available in the market. The TelosB (aka Tmote Sky) platform has been taken as reference design for this new development, in which a 868 MHz radio transceiver compliant with wireless M-Bus specification and a series of hardware modules (RDS, RTC and meter interface) has been added to the TelosB current design to provide the functionality required to handle automatic meter reading (AMR) applications based on SYNCSEN. Throughout the project lifetime the SYNCSEN mote has gone through four revisions - revision A to D.
Hardware development most significant results:
- Full hardware specification based on measurements of the final version of the SYNCSEN mote (revision D).
- 868 MHz radio transceiver fully compliant with wireless M-bus specification.
- Highly-integrated and small size RDS receiver based on Si4706 chip from Silabs which provides the best specifications over the competition.
- PCB spiral antenna in order to archive FM-RDS high-performance signal reception.
- RTC chip with oscillator compensation providing less than ±5 ppm drift over the full -40 °C to +85 °C temperature range (error < 1 second/month).
- A meter interface to connect the SYNCSEN platform with water and gas meters currently in use by Water Services Corporation (Malta) and Lowri-Beck System (UK) respectively.
- A SYNCSEN power consumption estimator application was developed to estimate the life time of a SYNCSEN mote based on accurate energy consumption measurements.
The aim of the deliverable 7 was to test the external synchronisation capabilities of the SYNCSEN platform. In SYNCSEN, external synchronisation is achieved through a common FM frequency which is available for all the network. Each node contains an RDS receiver chip, and the whole network is tuned to the same FM station. Each SYNCSEN mote will receive the clock, through RDS, and sync the onboard clock with that of the RDS. This makes the whole network in sync. If a node fails to wake up on the set time, due to a drift in its onboard clock system, it will re-sync its clock and put in sleep mode again. The Silicon Labs Si4706 chip was selected as an RDS receiver.
To test the reception of RDS in various places were utility meters are placed, an Si4706 evaluation board was bought and several tests around the island of Malta were done to test the RDS reception capabilities of the chip. Apart from the reception itself, a number of parameters were recorded, including the signal to noise ratio (SNR), and the block error rate.
The tests were done in six locations. The transmission antenna for the radio station selected (only one station transmits RDS in Malta) is situated in the centre of the Island. Locations that are within 3 - 5 km away from the antenna did not have any problem obtaining a fix on RDS but locations that were > 5 km away and were in a valley or behind a hill did not obtain RDS or obtained RDS with large error rates making the sync time too large (> 2 sec) hence unusable.
For prototype deliverable D12, a set of images of the SYNCSEN mote Beta prototype (revision B) are available.
Work package 4: Firmware implementation
D8 (Mid-term report on firmware development) describes the firmware implementation of the physical and data link layers of the SYNCSEN radio stack.
Section 2 shows the CC1101 register values calculation to configure the CC1101 radio transceiver according to the different operational modes (S, T, R2 and P) supported by the wireless M-bus standard. Several performance tests have been carried out using calculated register values in order to obtain the optimal ones. Measurements from SYNCSEN and commercial wireless M-bus devices have been performed to compare the physical layers.
Section 3 describes the SYNCSEN data link architecture, TelosB platform and Open Blaze platform from TinyOS repository has been used as starting point for implementing the SYNCSEN data link layer according to wireless M-bus specifications.
SYNCSEN Data Link most significant results:
- The SYNCSEN link layer is a protocol which transfers data between adjacent network nodes in a reliable way.
- When SYNCSEN nodes attempt to use the medium simultaneously, frame collisions occur. SYNCSEN link layer specify how devices detect and recover from such collisions (CSMA), but it does not prevent them from happening.
- The data transfer can be reliable or unreliable; wireless M-bus link layer provides ACKs of successful frame reception and acceptance as well as checksum to check for transmission errors.
- Long packet transmission / reception (> 450 bytes) supported.
- Packet encoding and decoding (Manchester and three out of siz) is performed as defined by the wireless M-bus standard.
- Information about the quality of the link (LQI) and signal strength (RSSI) is provided for network formation.
- Radio channel (up to 12), output power (-30 to +10 dBm) and WMBUS working mode (S, T, R or P) are also controlled by this layer.
The aim of D13 (Final report on firmware development) is to describe the SYNCSEN network and application layer implementations based on parts 3 and 5 of the EN 13757 and the implementation of the different drivers for the required hardware modules to support metering applications (RDS, RTC, meter interface), as described in WP1.
Section 2 describes the network layer. This layer falls under the fifth part of the wireless M-bus standard which defines the requirements for the protocols used in wireless meter networks, specifically for meter devices working in the 868 - 870 MHz band. Section 2.1 describes the two different relaying methods specified by the wireless M-bus standard: router and gateway relaying. Section 2.2 introduces an energy-aware low power listening (LPL) mechanism compliant with wireless M-bus specification. Sections 2.3 and 2.4 describe the error handling and time synchronisation mechanisms respectively as defined by the standard. Section 2.5 describes the wireless M-bus routing protocols (modes R2, P and Q). Section 2.6 describes the routing protocol that is adopted by SYNCSEN (mode-P). The tree creation and collection procedures that define the SYNCSEN network layer are also described in section 2.6. Section 2.7 lists and describes the SYNCSEN network configuration parameters and the recommended values to optimise network performance according to network simulation results. Network parameters include: collection duration; back-off duration; long preamble length; retransmission delay; maximum retry limit and end-to-end ACK. Finally, section 2.8 describes the SYNCSEN network layer architecture which is responsible for routing network packets.
Section 3 describes the application layer, which includes all transmitted data. Sections 3.1 and 3.2 explain the structure of the packets. Section 3.3 describes the application layer status and error reporting. Section 3.4 shows how alarm status reports are generated. Section 3.5 explains the structure of the encrypted telegrams and the encryption methods that can be implemented to secure the transmitted data. Finally, Section 3.6 describes the architecture of the application layer, highlighting its main features and current limitations. The RTC and RDS drivers are also explained in this section.
SYNCSEN network layer most significant results:
- provide routing packets delivery including route discovery and routing through intermediate routers as defined by EN-13757-5;
- consist of a routing engine (RE) and a forwarding engine (FE);
- RE discovers and maintains routes between any meter node and the network concentrator;
- FE routes data packets from any meter node to the network gateway;
- optimised according to simulation results obtained in WP2.
SYNCSEN application layer most significant results:
- address from meter readout to application layer telegrams, as defined by EN-13757-3;
- water, gas, heat and electric meters are fully supported;
- enable easy integration of vendor-specific meters;
- provide data encryption based on DES (ANSI X3.92:1981);
- support RTC and RDS drivers for external time synchronisation and pulse-based meter-reading.
Work package 5: System integration
The main objective of WP5 consists in integrating and pre-validating the SYNCSEN technology.
D14 (Integration and laboratory validation report) contains information on how to perform different tests to validate the performance of the SYNCSEN platform. It also describes the necessary steps and tools for carrying out these tests as well as the results obtained. Section 2 describes the SYNCSEN Dumper application. This is a graphical user interface which supports different types of data capture software applications which are suitable for debugging the most important modules of the SYNCSEN system. Current supported applications are:
(i) wireless M-bus packet sniffer;
(ii) RDS inspector; and
(iii) RTC inspector.
Section 3 describes the SYNCSEN packet sniffer application. This is a Java application which monitors the network activity by capturing wireless M-bus radio packets and breaks them down according to the wireless M-bus protocol specifications. This application has been widely used in validating the SYNCSEN stack with respect to the wireless M-bus specification and eliminating firmware bugs to guarantee correct operation of the system.
Section 4 describes the SYNCSEN RDS inspector application. This application monitors and displays the RDS receiver activity by capturing the RDS configuration and status registers from a SYNCSEN mote. Captured packets are broken down into individual components for packet content inspection. Required radio signal levels to keep the RDS in working order are also presented here.
Section 5 describes the SYNCSEN RTC inspector application. This application monitors and displays the RTC activity by capturing the RTC configuration and status registers from a SYNCSEN mote. Packets are broken down into individual components for packet content inspection. Graphical information about the RTC drift error versus ambient temperature is provided. Laboratory RTC drift error tests and recommended FM-RDS synchronisations per month are also presented here.
Section 6 describes the SYNCSEN mote test applications. The purpose of the test applications are:
(i) a better understanding of the SYNCSEN technology;
(ii) to provide mote firmware to be used together with the capture software applications mentioned before; and
(iii) to facilitate the manufacturing process of the SYNCSEN motes by testing the different mote parts: radio transceiver, real time clock (RTC), radio data service (RDS), the meter interface and the serial silicon number.
Test results about link layer performance are also presented here.
Section 7 describes the SYNCSEN star topology test application. This section describes the necessary steps required to test the wireless M-bus star topology using SYNCSEN motes. It includes tests from radio layer up to the application layer, excluding the network layer.
Section 8 describes the SYNCSEN tree topology test application which was used to perform the final SYNCSEN network demonstration in Malta (WP6). This section describes the necessary steps required to test the wireless M-bus tree topology using SYNCSEN motes. It includes tests from radio layer up to the application layer, including the network layer. Optimal network parameters were set according to results obtained in D6.
Section 9 describes the SYNCSEN service application. This Java application captures serial data protocols provided by the SYNCSEN motes (e.g. gateway). This application also provides processed information to the SYNCSEN high-level applications or graphical user interfaces such as SYNCSEN packet sniffer or SYNCSEN web applications.
Section 10 describes the SYNCSEN web application. This JavaScript application monitors SYNCSEN networks from a web browser in real-time and can be accessed from any remote internet access point.
Finally, section 11 provides results on the network pre-validation test carried out at UPF facilities where a network of 30 nodes was deployed for 2 months.
Additional notes:
- For range test, please refer to the new D6 Annex attached in this second project report.
- For housing and mechanical assembly to existing meter reading technologies, please refer to D11.
- For SYNCSEN mote power consumption analysis, please refer to D11.
- For prototype deliverable D15, a set of images of the SYNCSEN mote final prototype (revision D) are available.
Work package 6: System validation
The main objective of WP6 consists in validating the SYNCSEN technology and includes the following three major tasks:
1) choice of a suitable test bed location in Malta;
2) development, manufacturing and testing of SYNCSEN nodes;
3) SYNCSEN network commissioning in Malta.
These tasks are summarised below:
Task 1: Choice of a suitable test bed location in Malta
The test bed location was chosen according to four attributes:
(i) RDS signal strength measurements obtained from the external synchronisation tests;
(ii) a location that contains a variety of buildings;
(iii) a strategic and secure place where to install the network gateway; and
(iv) a location where a rapid response to any network malfunction is ensured.
Details can be found in deliverables D7 and D18.
Task 2: Development, manufacturing and testing of SYNCSEN nodes
During the last year of the project, the SYNCSEN hardware was upgraded from revision A and B (developed during the first year) to revision C and D. The upgrade consisted of the addition of system blocks, including the RDS, RTC and meter interface modules. Power consumption analysis were carried out for each state of the SYNCSEN node (active and sleep mode). In total 200 revision D SYNCSEN nodes and CC1101 transceivers were manufactured. After manufacturing and assembly, the nodes were tested. Five software programs were purposefully developed to the test the functionality of the nodes. The electronic circuits were placed inside water-tight enclosures which were manufactured to allow the RF antenna, RDS antenna and meter probe to be mounted outside.
Fifty SYNCSEN nodes were flashed with the new demo firmware (see SYNCSEN tree Topology test application in WP5) and 5 demo kits containing 10 nodes each were distributed to the five participating SME partners. Thirty nodes were given to UPF to carry out initial network tests before network commissioning in Malta took place. The purpose of this test was to detect any software bugs present in the system at early stage. These were detected and corrected before the real test in Malta took place. The remaining 120 nodes were used for network commissioning in Malta.
More information about SYNCSEN mote manufacturing and testing can be found in deliverables D11 and D14.
Task 3: SYNCSEN network commissioning in Malta
SYNCSEN network commissioning was performed in the locality of San Gwann in Malta. Two networks were deployed with the assistance of Water Services Corporation (WSC). Network A was installed in an area that contains old apartments, residential houses and new apartments. Network B was installed in an area that contains old apartments and houses. Test data over a period of two months was collected and used to obtain network performance results.
In Network A, only 25 nodes (including the bridge nodes) managed to connect with the coordinator. Only 18 nodes were noticed to come online all the time. In network B, six nodes successfully connected with the coordinator.
The results indicate that the wireless range of the nodes is too short for the scenario in San Gwann. Networks A and B contain 'isolated' nodes, i.e. locations where the nodes are unreachable with the current WSC installations services. The power of the RF transceiver is not strong enough to reach the nearest meter. Moreover, the reason why network B had so few nodes that connected to the coordinator is that the transmission path between the coordinator and the nodes was heavily affected by the large building structures that lie in the way. Also the location of network B lies at least 4 m under ground level. The end result is that the signal is highly attenuated and dispersed; therefore it is very weak and is not received by the meter nodes.
It is recommended that planning / simulation of network deployment prior to actual installation is done for determining locations where to install 'strategic' nodes. Strategic nodes need not be connected to a meter, but their purpose would be to ensure that there are no isolated nodes in the network.
The results reveal that bridge nodes ('repeaters') have to be installed in strategic locations to solve the isolation problem. In practice, this is a limitation since strategic locations may not always fall on utility company property. Another solution would be to increase the transmission power of the nodes. A new 868 MHz radio front-end that can reach a transmission power up to 500 mW can be designed. This modification involves adding external components to the CC1101 RF chip. These components are a power amplifier (PA) in the transmitting path and a low noise amplifier (LNA) in the receiving path. Only the RF PCB would need to be changed. The main PCB board would remain the same. Texas Instruments produce these components that match with the CC1101. The disadvantage of using a higher power is that the power consumption is slightly increased. However, this will have a negligible effect since most of the time the network will be in sleep mode. Another drawback is that the maximum power stipulated by the Wireless M-bus standard will be surpassed. In less than a year, the wireless M-bus standard will allow for transmission in the 169 MHz channel. Having a lower frequency (VHF spectrum) will automatically increase the range without the need of adding extra components for signal amplification / boosting. The interesting part is that this frequency is reserved for utility companies.
Another property that was observed during installation is the positioning of the node (antenna). This was found to be extremely critical for wireless range especially in sub ground level installations. A lower positioning or slight tilt of the antenna from the perpendicular axis can signify a disconnection and in many cases isolation. Since this was a temporary test the meter was tied to a water pipe using a set of tie clips. Therefore, optimum placement was not always possible. In real installation scenarios it is important to install the nodes in an upright position with the antenna perpendicular to the ground.
The average installation rate was of 8 nodes/hour. The installation time can be further reduced if the enclosure had been already closed and sealed. In this case an external indicator (such as an LED in a sealed window) must be fit to verify RDS connection at the installation location.
Even though the installation method is relatively quick it still has a drawback since it is difficult to know immediately (upon installation) if the node has successfully connected to the network or not. This information is only available each time the network wakes up on the hour. Also, testing for the range with test nodes is not a practical solution due to the unknown architecture of the tree network and the hop-count constraint that the wireless M-bus protocol poses.
More details can be found in deliverable D18.
Currently, a new network commissioning is being carried out in UK with the assistance of Lowri-Beck System.
Network installation and maintenance procedures
The main objective of D17 consists in providing a set of procedures for SYNCSEN network installation a maintenance.
The public part of D17 (sections 1 through 4) provides SYNCSEN network installers with a detailed guide to carry out the commissioning of a SYNCSEN network. This document is updated according to the latest SYNCSEN software release (1.8) available in the project FTP server and installers should not have any problem installing a network if all the steps described are followed correctly.
This document forms part of the documentation of the SYNCSEN start-up kit which was sent to the partners for training purposes at month 21 of the project. This document was also distributed to the Water Service Corporation (WSC) meter installers before starting the final SYNCSEN network commissioning which took place in Malta in October 2011.
The document is divided into three parts. The second section describes the installation of the SYNCSEN motes. Different aspects such as mote physical location, interface with a meter and final mote checkout are considered. Furthermore, due to the differences and particularities of each installation, a set of general recommendations have also been included to cover the common problems during SYNCSEN mote deployment. Section 3 of the document describes the required steps to install the SYNCSEN server application (SSA) which constituted of three different software components: the SYNCSEN Database, the SYNCSEN web application and the SYNCSEN service. Information about how to configure a server to support these software components has also been included. Section 4 is a user's manual which describes the SYNCSEN web application (SWA), an easy and friendly web interface to access to the SYNCSEN network(s) data from a remote browser.
The private part of D17 (section 5 through 6) provides detailed information about the required steps to install SYNCSEN development suite (SDS). All SDS is based on open-source and license-free code and is fully integrated in Eclipse IDE for easy platform development and maintenance.
Section 5 contains a description of the installation and configuration of the different software tools which constitute the SYNCSEN DS: Java SDK, TinyOS, Eclipse, Tomcat, MySQL, etc.
Section 6 describes how to import, build and flash an existing SYNCSEN project. A brief introduction to the different SYNCSEN applications developed during the project (e.g. radio layers, program tests, java application tools, etc.) as well as information about the integration of the SYNCSEN program into the TinyOS tree is also provided
Work package 7: Facilitating the take up of results
D7 contains information about dissemination and exploitation activities carried out during the project.
An overview of the dissemination activities done from the project start is provided, including: official web page, research connection congress, project brochure, metering and billing / CRM Europe Conference and Exhibition 2009, Wikipedia entry, project White Paper, dissemination survey, metering and billing / CRM Europe Conference and Exhibition 2010, live web application, dissemination slides and poster, research article, etc.
With respect to exploitation activities, the SMEs have reached an agreement on the terms and conditions that will regulate their relation as joint owners and allow the exploitation of the project results by each one of them in its country of establishment, as well as the possible licensing of SYNCSEN to third parties. The headings of the Agreement between the project SMEs are included in D19.
Moreover, the SMEs have drawn a concrete strategy for the protection of the project results by trade secrets, copyright and technological measures (restricted access to source code), a brand name and trade mark. The option of patenting is analysed in D19 and left open for the (possibly near) future.
Finally, as detailed in D19, the partners have also undertaken activities related to the effective knowledge transfer (in particular start-up kits), standardisation, partner search and market forecasts.
Potential impact:
The potential market: There were 2.8 billion estimated meters in the world in 2010. These consisted of 1554 million electricity meters, 395 million gas meters and 856 million water meters. Europe accounted for 12.1 % of all meter demand. There were approximately 340 million meters in the EU, including Norway and Switzerland.
The expected growth rate for the water meter market is 7.3 % and for the gas meter market 4.3 % in the coming years. It is predicted that wireless ARM solutions will account for 21 % of all AMR endpoints shipped in 2010; this will result in a total potential market of 6.2 million meters/year for new market. In addition to the market for a new wireless meters we estimated a potential (static) retrofit market of 84,3 million. We expect SYNCSEN technology to capture at least 0,04 % of new wireless ARM market in 5 years and also 0.015 % of the retrofit market (using wireless technology) in 5 years. Considering that:
1) an average selling price for a wireless SYNCSEN OEM module will be EUR 10 - 12 for module manufacturers;
2) an average selling price of EUR 40 - 55 for new smart meters; and
3) an average selling price of EUR 20 - 35 for retrofit device.
All dissemination activities have been carried out with the approval of all partners and in due observance of confidentiality obligations for project results that are protected as trade secrets.
The UPF prepared a dissemination survey in order to collect the partners' view about:
(i) publications / speeches at international conferences;
(ii) material for commercial dissemination;
(iii) other possible dissemination activities.
All partners participated in the survey, with the following results:
1. Not all the partners agreed with the publication of a research article presenting SYNCSEN to the scientific community. In particular, the SMEs have expressed concerns regarding the protection of confidential information generated by the project. Eventually, after discussion in several meetings, the partners reached an agreement on the content of such article at the month 18 meeting. Researchers from UPF and CRIC have already drafted the article in question, which was subsequently revised by the SMEs and eventually approved for publication in the Sensors journal in November 2011.
2. The SMEs provided some additional ideas regarding dissemination material, leading to the creation of a detailed business White Paper, a presentation and a poster (please see further details below).
3. The SMEs expressed their wish to receive start-up kits by the RTD performers, which would facilitate the system validation and the SYNCSEN technology tranfer.
4. The SMEs also supported the development of the SYNCSEN web application to perform live demontrations in fairs and for clients.
5. Finally, all partners agreed to improve the SYNCSEN website and maintain it updated with information and news about the project.
The dissemination of the SYNCSEN project can be divided into three different groups depending on the target audience:
(1) companies that will: a) use the technology and/or b) purchase the technology;
(2) general public; and
(3) scientific community.
Depending on the target audience the issues to be disseminated differ as well as the forums where the dissemination takes place.
General dissemination initiated at the beginning of the project with the creation of the SYNCSEN website. As the project work developed and results were achieved, dissemination actions became more frequent and targeted to the industry. The partners in fairs and conferences did not use any specific forms or other written records of the number of visitors, questions regarding the SYNCSEN solution, interest in collaborations, etc. that occurred every time SYNCSEN was presented in an international fair. Nevertheless, many attendants requested additional information on the solution and were provided with such information and the contact of the project partners. In some occasions these contacts led to further discussions on potential collaborations. Moreover, the participation in these fairs also contributed to a broader dissemination of the solution to potential buyers / licensees / end-users, whose benefits will be hopefully obvious as soon as the project SMEs put the solution on the market. Hence, overall speaking, the evaluation of SYNCSEN presentation in fairs is extremely positive and the project SMEs will repeat such presentations after the project.
It was agreed at the 18 month meeting that a scientific paper regarding SYNCSEN should be published and that UPF would provide the partners with a general structure of the paper for approval. From the UPF point of view, it is interesting to present the testbed results in order to increase the scientific value of the article. At the same time, the SMEs wished to restrict the amount of technical details included in the article. The disagreement postponed the publication of the article in several occasions. Eventually, an agreement has been reached; the article has been drafted by researchers at UPF and CRIC and successfully submitted to the approval of the SMEs. It has already been accepted for publication by the Sensors journal (November 2011).
The expected benefits:
The SMEs involved have envisaged the SYNCSEN project to lead to a total economic impact to be in the region EUR 5 million in 2012, resulting in a return on investment ratio (ROI) of 1:8 (the partners investment considered is of EUR 600 000) due to the benefits related to reduce the negative balance in the supply and consumption of gas and water resulting from faulty meter readings. The total profit for SMEs is estimated at EUR 1.5 million in 2012.
The market approach:
Due to the uniqueness of SYNCSEN, the 0,04 and 0,015 of initial penetration in the current European market are very modest estimations. The SMEs strongly believe that the real market for this technology is much higher. The SMEs will contribute to a common marketing approach, taking up from the dissemination activities of the project and including the following actions:
1) a widespread marketing campaign targeting water and gas suppliers and metering companies, drawing on the use cases established by SYNCSEN;
2) leveraging of the industrial contacts and client bases of the project SMEs and others;
3) large scale advertising campaign in metering industry and utilities related publications.
The objective of the project was not only to develop the SYNCSEN solution but also to prepare the ground for its integration into the existing services provided by the SMEs of the project, thus ensuring its exploitation on the market. Moreover, the goal of the SMEs was also to establish contacts with key companies that could be interested in acquiring a licence to use the technology, further contributing to its exploitation and generating additional income for the SMEs. The exploitation manager, Mr Tamas Boday from CASON, was responsible for coordinating the SMEs' efforts towards the protection and exploitation of the project results. In particular, Mr Tamas Boday was contributing in:
(i) ensuring a comprehensive transfer of all knowledge related to the SYNCSEN;
(ii) technology and all results of the project from the RTD performers to the SMEs;
(iii) gathering the views of the SMEs on the best means to protect the innovative results generated by the project;
(iv) coordinating discussions between the SMEs regarding the exploitation of the SYNCSEN solution by the SMEs themselves (in their respective countries of establishment) and by third parties through licensing;
(v) resolving disagreements between the SMEs and the RTD performers regarding the dissemination of the project results against their protection as trade secrets; and
(vi) reporting the actions and plans of the SMEs for the protection, use and dissemination of the foreground generated by the project.
The SMEs are the exclusive joint owners of all foreground generated in the project, but the effective exploitation of such foreground requires more than the title. The SMEs have expressed from the very beginning of the project their intention to keep up closely with the work of the RTD performers, so as to follow its development and understand its nature. As results were generated the RTD performers transferred them to the SMEs, together with specific explanations on the tests carried out, demonstration of best practices for using the technology and additional support. This constant exchange, mainly carried out during project meetings, allowed the SMEs to express their doubts and requests for improvement, steering the work of the RTD performers towards the optimum solutions by industrial and market standards such as the wireless M-bus standard (EN 13757). As the project reached its final stages (month 20), the RTD performers started the preparation of SYNCSEN start-up kits that would include all the information and data necessary to test and swiftly exploit the results of the project.
According to the schedule agreed by the partners at the beginning of the project and provided for in the description of work, the SMEs should be capable of exploiting the SYNCSEN solution in the first year after the end of the project. To achieve this, three elements are necessary:
(i) further testing of the technology and adaptation to the needs of local markets;
(ii) specific business plans to match the particularities of local markets; and
(iii) networking activities with third parties interested in the commercialisation of the technology.
At present, several such actions have taken place. Partners CASON and TRITECK have already plans for carrying our further testing of the technology and integration to their current solutions and services. The SMEs are ready to implement the tests and have requested support from the RTD performers, mainly CRIC, in this task. CRIC has undertaken to provide such support and the parties are currently discussing the details of the additional work to be carried out. CASON is also considering similar activities, while all SMEs expressed their interest for mutual information in new developments. Furthermore, LBS is also considering the integration of the SYNCSEN solution in its services, as it will be shown hereunder. LBS has been very active in networking activities, primarily at the congresses and fairs described in section above. It is relevant to highlight among these contacts the one between LBS and Sensus4, a US-based leader of the smart metering market. Sensus expressed its interest in the technology and requested additional information in order to evaluate a possible collaboration. LBS announced this fact at the consortium meeting held on 2 July 2010 in Dublin and presented the confidentiality agreement that intended to sign with Sensus, on behalf of the consortium, in order to engage conversations. The rest of the SMEs studied the case and provided their approval. LBS is currently discussing the potential of the technology with Sensus. It will report to the SMEs in due time. Similarly, OSSIDIAN, an SME which works as an intermediary offering complete solutions to clients, is already studying the integration of SYNCSEN to the services provided to its clients and has already discussed the benefits of the solution with them. Once again, this contributes further to the dissemination and promotion of the SYNCSEN solution and will hopefully contribute to its prompt commercialisation. Finally, all SMEs are currently studying the exploitation potential of SYNCSEN within their local markets and drawing specific business plans to match their respective commercialisation strategies.
As explained in deliverable D19, the SMEs have considered patenting the technology. Nevertheless, and following their discussions, patent rights are not the best means to protect SYNCSEN, for several reasons.
(i) The main innovation behind the SYNCSEN solution is software code, mainly the firmware code incorporated in the SYNCSEN hardware and the operating software. The hardware itself is mainly composed by so-called 'off-the-shelf' elements, already covered by the state of the art. SYNCSEN could be treated as a computer implemented method and possibly qualify for patent protection. Nevertheless, it is not clear how strong the claims of such patent would be compared to other means for protecting the technology, namely copyright and trade secrets.
(ii) Moreover, patent application procedures last for several years, while technological developments in the metering sector are evolving rapidly to match the growing needs of the market. Once again, and although SYNCSEN is a technology with a large expected lifetime as it will be shown hereunder, it was not clear that the solution will remain innovative in its current state of development for a considerable number of years, so as to justify high patenting costs. It is more likely that the SMEs themselves further develop SYNCSEN-based solutions, which in the course of time would reduce the value of the initial patent.
(iii) Finally, patent costs would be considerable, since SYNCSEN should be protected as minimum in all the countries where the SMEs are established and possibly extended to countries of potential licensees, within the priority year. For the above reasons, the project SMEs have discarded patent protection for the moment. Nevertheless, as previously mentioned, they are strongly considering patenting wireless M-bus patents in active network inspection and remote firmware updating in the future, to facilitate network deployment and maintence, respectively.
Copyright and trade secrets can be equally efficient to protect the project foreground. Both the RTD performers and the SMEs have been particularly cautious in preserving the SYNCSEN source code as a trade secret. This included specific instructions to their employees. Moreover, the following copyright disclaimer was attached to all dissemination and other material incorporating SYNCSEN (besides technological protection measures for the source code), to make users aware of the existence of proprietary rights and prevent against any intents to decipher the source code:
Copyright © 2009 - 2011 SMEs and LBS of SYNCSEN consortium - All rights reserved. You may not copy, redistribute, make derivative works of, decipher by reverse engineering or otherwise use the Software without previous written authorisation by the right holders.
Similarly, the project partners also required the signature of confidentiality agreements by third parties which acquired a deeper understanding of the SYNCSEN technology. Finally, the word 'SYNCSEN' is already used by the project SMEs as a brand name, both in dissemination actions and contacts with third parties interested in the technology. Moreover, the domain name 'SYNCSEN.com' is already property of the project SMEs. Similarly, the word is attached to any other communication or material related to the project. The intention of the SMEs is to register 'SYNCSEN' as a community trade mark before launching any related services on the market.
The address of the project public website, if applicable as well as relevant contact details.
Project links
web: http://syncsen.cric-projects.com
wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncsen_project
life: http://82.223.161.209:10000/syncserver/info.jsp
Project partners
SME: CASON Engineering Plc. Mr Tamás Boday, tamas.boday@cason.hu
SME: Tritech Technology AB, Mr Gosis Loow Gosia.Loow@tritech.se
SME: Ossidian Technologies Ltd. Mr Donald Hickey, donald.hickey@ossidian.com
SME: JCB Electromecánica S.L. Mr Narcís Clavell, narcis. clavell@cric.cat
OTHER: Lowri Beck Systems Ltd. Mr John Heath, john.heath@lowribeck.co.uk
Other: Water Services Corp., Mr Stephen Galea St John, stphen.galeastjohn@wsc.com.mt
RTD: Centre de Recerca I Investigació de Catalunya S.A. Mr Josep Perello, josep.perello@cric.cat and Pancraç Villalonga, pancras.villalonga@cric.cat
RTD: Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Mr Boris Bellalta, boris.bellalta@
RTD: Malta Innovation for Industrial SMEs, M. Michael Bonello, michael.bonello@miis.com.mt
Utility companies are among the largest CO2 emitters. Smart grids and smart meters will play a critical role in helping utility companies reduce their carbon emissions, allowing them to manage their distribution grids more efficiently. This requires less power to be generated, creating fewer emissions and reducing the frequency and duration of outages.
53 million automatic electric meter readers have been deployed throughout Europe over the past five years. They enable customer electricity usage to be quantified on a daily basis, enabling accurate billing and providing real time consumption information to the customer. Studies have shown that customers using real time consumption data have reduced their electricity use by up to 15 %. As such, automatic meter reading (AMR) provides benefits for the utility companies, their customers, and the environment. AMR was first applied to electricity metering due to the convenience of powering AMR meters from the electricity grid, and because the same grid can be used to send the consumption data from the home to the utility company via power line communications (PLC).
The SYNCSEN consortium SMEs have identified a need to develop a novel AMR system for gas and water utility companies and meter reading companies. The technology will result in significant economic benefits for consortium members in that it is easily adaptable to any meter type, allowing consortium SMEs to address both gas and water sectors. There will be no further need for additional hardware (repeaters). SYNCSEN nodes are battery powered, and have ultra-low power consumption, giving a battery life of 10 years, equal to the lifetime of the meter itself. SYNCSEN is also designed as a retrofit for existing meters, with minimal installation cost.
The shared experience, technical knowledge and capabilities will produce a unique, economic and environmentally friendly solution for accurate reading of meters EU-wide and will enable utility companies to reduce the negative balance in the supply and consumption of gas and water resulting from faulty meter measurements, as well as the negative impacts of energy waste to the environment. This unique product will enable the consortium to compete globally in the growing environmentally-aware and highly competitive European market.
The SYNCSEN technology will contribute to standards as it will spur project partners and other companies towards best practice in conforming to national and European gas and water legislation and Directives. This technology will also make a significant contribution to improving established standards such as the metering bus ('M-bus' for short), which is a field bus standard designed for transmitting metering data from gas, heat, water or other meters to a data collector and described by European Norm (EN 13757).
Project context and objectives:
The aim of SYNCSEN is to provide utility companies with a secure remote meter reading solution to increase company competitiveness and customer satisfaction. It addresses the special needs of home utilities, providing a remote metering solution that is independent of the electricity infrastructure.
The SYNCSEN automated meter reading (AMR) technology provides a cost-effective and ultra-low power consumption solution based on a novel hardware and software approach. The current SYNCSEN radio stack implements protocols which are fully compliant with the EN-13757 standard.
Main features
- Tailored for low cost metering applications
- For urban and rural scenarios as well as all types of buildings
- For new and retrofitting market
- Wireless multi-hop network compliant with the EN 13757 standard
- Ultra Low power consumption (battery life > 10 years)
- Novel synchronised wake-up mechanism
- Ease of installation, with very low maintenance cost
- Secure bidirectional communication for remote and additional utility services
- Optimised solution between small footprint and excellent modularity and scalability.
The scientific objective of this project lies in reducing energy consumption of individual motes and, consequently, of the overall network, without degrading network throughput. This was mainly achieved through the use of external synchronisation (free radio time clocks, available in FM free bands), novel joint-routing and network scheduling mechanisms. As a result, the current SYNCSEN motes have a power consumption < 400 mAh/year when a meter reading data collection is carried out weekly.
The technological objective of this project lies in a reliable solution for many types of metering needs (such as vertical urban scenarios as well as horizontal rural / low density urban scenarios), in particular for those in which access to main-power is not possible or where meter access is difficult by means of developing a low-cost (EUR 10 - 12 /mote for scale production), easy-to-deploy, low-power consumption, wireless and license free ISM band (868 MHz) smart sensor network for automatic home, and business meter reading based on the European Norm (EN 13757). The SYNCSEN network is formed by motes (up to 250) that include: gas or water counter, consumption logger, real-time clock, remote control and configuration (i.e. flexible tariffs, switch on/off, etc.), outage time periods, etc. and mutually collaborate to transmit information to the control centre according to the Wireless M-bus specification.
The need for better relations with the end customer is a key driver for automatic meter reading. Additionally, authorities are constantly setting stricter requirements, customers demanding a higher service level and the need for profitability means that cost-effective solutions are high on the agenda. Two potential markets have been identified and will be targeted by SYNCSEN: manufacturers and distributors of new meters, and the retrofitting market of water and gas metering. SYNCSEN will target almost all households and facilities (urban and rural), as well as the industrial sector, representing an enormous market and diversification to various sectors of the economy.
There were an estimated 2.8 billion meters in the world in 2009. These consisted of 1554 million electricity meters, 395 million gas meters and 856 million water meters (retrofitting market). Growth in market volume will be 3.0 % a year for electricity meters, 4.3 % for gas meters and 7.3 % for water meters (new market). Europe accounts for 12.1 % of all meter demand. There are approximately 523 million meters in the EU, including Norway and Switzerland.
SME partners expect SYNCSEN technology to capture at least 0,05 % of new wireless ARM market in 5 years and also 0.02 % of the retrofit market (using wireless technology) in 5 years. Considering that:
1) an average selling price for a wireless SYNCSEN OEM module will be EUR 10-12 for module manufacturers;
2) an average selling price of EUR 40 - 55 for new smart meters; and
3) an average selling price of EUR 20 - 35 for retrofit device.
The SMEs involved have envisaged that the successful execution of the SYNCSEN project will lead to a total economic impact to be in the region EUR 45 million over a 5-year period, resulting in a return on investment ratio (ROI) of 1:27. The partners consider an investment of EUR 585 000 will be required to ready the design for mass production (including certification) and to cover marketing expenses.
The 'M-bus' is a field bus, which is specialised for transmitting metering data from electrical, gas, heat, water or other meters to a data collector. It is described by a European Norm (EN 13757), which includes the specification of wired and wireless M-bus. M-bus is recognised in many regions of the world as a basis for new advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) installations.
SYNCSEN Wireless M-bus based technology is a powerful tool for supporting innovation and increasing productivity among the consortium SMEs as it is easy to install and maintain. Effective standardisation promotes competitiveness and enhances profitability allowing SMEs to:
1) attract and retain customers;
2) demonstrate market leadership;
3) create competitive advantage;
4) develop and maintain best practices; and
5) comply with European legislation.
SYNCSEN results in greater accuracy in meter reading, facilitating pro-active measures to reduce gas and water consumption and identify water leakage. The technology will also increase the ability of consortium SMEs to comply with gas and water demand management measures being introduced to promote gas and water use efficiency in sectors of major use. This project will also contribute to reducing the environmental impact of the water sector and encouraging conservation by accurately predicting consumer needs. In addition, by providing consumers with near real-time accurate readings of their personal consumption, end users will become more aware of just how much gas and water they are using. As many conservation experts claim, 'If you can measure it, you can improve it!'
Project results:
Work package 1: System specifications
During the first three months of the project, several discussions with the project SMEs were held to determine their needs. After comparing different wireless technologies and the current market solutions everyone agreed that it should be used wireless M-bus as SYNCSEN radio protocol. After evaluating different hardware alternatives, implementation based on CC1101 radio transceiver and MSP430 microcontroller was finally chosen. It was also agreed that TinyOS/TelosB will be used as the starting point for implementing SYNCSEN radio layers according to wireless M-bus specifications.
The wireless M-bus is specified by the European Norm 13757, which is divided in six parts. The correspondence between the OSI model and SYNCSEN wireless M-bus layers is shown in the Annex.
The SYNCSEN main features are detailed next:
- for new and retrofit market;
- permits achieving interoperability with other utility meters according to the EN13757-4 (wireless M-bus) standard;
- compliant with future EU standards / regulations;
- suitable for gas and water meter reading where 4 - 5 readings per month are required;
- ultra low-power consumption (10+ years battery life-time at 1 reading per month);
- fully battery-operated multi-hop network;
- allows gas and water utilities to provide metering services independently (non electric utility dependency);
- network wake-up based on external radio clock signal (RDS time clock service);
- good radio signal penetration at 868 MHz (3 - 4 building floors);
- secure bidirectional communication following adjustable periodic synchronised wake-up;
- based on open source TinyOS / TelosB platform.
The SYNCSEN main limitations are detailed next:
- narrow band single channel at 868 MHz;
- due to the limited channel capacity, real-time services may not be feasible;
- asynchronous forced wake-up not supported (i.e. alarms);
- no timely adaptation to customers demands.
During the key system specification process, the consortium discussed about the technical problems of using a common frequency reference source. Finally, radio broadcast data system (RDS), a standard communication protocol for sending small amounts of digital information using conventional FM radio broadcasts, was adopted as source of external synchronisation for the SYNCSEN network. Due to not all broadcast radio stations support the RDS time clock (TC) service, a survey was carried out to know the present and future availability of the RDS-TC service in the partner countries (the results of this survey can be found in D2 section 6 and in D19 section 2.
Work package 2: Network design and simulation
In WP2, all tasks have been performed to provide the definition of the entire protocol stack of the SYNCSEN network and to provide the evaluation of the SYNCSEN network in different scenarios. The work presented in the deliverables 4 and 6 refers to task 2.1 (RF propagation study), task 2.2 (Design of network protocols), task 2.3 (SYNCSEN network simulator), task 2.4 (Network analysis and optimisation) and task 2.5 (Modelling and evaluation of real scenarios).
As described in D4, the radio layer will use WMBUS mode P as it is the one defined to be used with wireless relaying meters according to the standard. This mode uses Manchester data coding, provides 4.8 Kcps chip-rate, 1 % duty cycle (listen time versus listen plus sleep time) and a working frequency of 868 MHz.
The medium access control (MAC) layer defines that the communication of the meters is based on a duty cycle that means that the meter listens the shared medium at regular intervals in order to find a wake-up signal. Only if a wake-up signal is found the meter will stay awake to receive the data, otherwise it will go to sleep. The meter that wants to send a message should send it preceded with the wake-up signal in order to wake-up the receiver. Observe that, this mode of operation reduces the energy consumption of the meters as they are sleeping when there is no activity in the medium instead of continuously listening to the channel.
The WMBUS at the network layer defines a kind of tree topology in order to send messages from the leaves to the gateway (the data collection unit). Two different modes are specified: the router and the gateway-based approaches. Due to the flexibility of the former, it has been selected for the SYNCSEN network. This decision influences the radio and link layer designs as the mode P of operation should be used in the wireless meters. D4 also provides an overview of the different message formats and the management services of this layer. One important feature that the WMBUS standard does not specify is the creation of the network routes. In this deliverable, two options specially designed for the SYNCSEN network are provided: the 'first path tree' and the 'best path tree'. In both approaches, the data collection unit starts the network (tree) creation, then each wireless meter that receives this information stores and forward it by including its own address in the message. The first path tree is a very simple mechanism in which wireless meters store the first information that arrives and ignore the rest, the tree creation of this approach is extremely quick. On the contrary, in the 'best' path tree wireless meters update the path if 'better' information arrives. They should also notify the update; therefore a new message is generated after a change in the path that makes this mechanism more arduous than the first one. The definition of which is a 'better' path can be based on several factors including number of hops, quality of the links in the path, remaining energy of the meters involved, etc. The best solution depends on the scenario of interest and on the application, remember that in the SYNCSEN network only one message will be sent per collection. The final decision will be based on the simulation results.
D6 contains a detailed specification of the SYNCSEN network simulator developed to analyse the performance of the network. The network simulator models the network as independent modules of wireless meters and the channel; each wireless meter is connected to the channel by means of two ports: one for sending data and the other for receiving data from it. The channel is in charge of sending messages only to those nodes that are in coverage range of the transmitter. A wireless meter module is in turn divided in different modules modelling the protocol stack (application, network, link and radio) and other modules with general functionalities (the battery and mobility modules). The protocol stack simulated follows the WMBUS specification at all the layers involved. At the application layer, a sensing unit is simulated, it forms the message to be sent to the data collection unit. The network layer is in charge of managing the routes to the data collection unit following the routing algorithms described in D4. At the link layer, a B-MAC protocol is simulated, that models the operation of the WMBUS at the medium access control layer. The radio layer is a simple module operating in the 868 MHz band.
Using the simulator described, different performance metrics (throughput, delay, reliability and energy consumption) are obtained for different types of scenarios (a random position of the meters, a building-like scenario and a residential neighbourhood-like scenario). The goal of the evaluation is to obtain in which conditions the network works properly in order to derive optimal configurations, find some critical problems that could appear but also compare the results of the first versus the 'best' path tree routing algorithms described in D4.
D6 also provides optimal configurations (setting a threshold of 95 % reliability) for each scenario considered, the optimal configurations include the use of the first path tree that provides similar results compared to the 'best' path tree with less energy consumption. Moreover, some problems have been found. The first one is a low reliability; the number of messages that are lost in the path to the data collector unit are considerable. The main cause of the data losses is the hidden terminal problem; data from nodes that are not in coverage range collide at the receiver that is not able to receive any of the data sent. Different solutions for alleviating this problem are proposed: increase the maximum retry limit to seven (initially it was set to three) and implement and end-to-end ACK that would allow wireless meters to detect losses in the intermediary routers. Another problem is isolated nodes, due also to hidden terminal problems some nodes are not able to receive the message of tree creation from their neighbours. This problem cannot be alleviated by increasing the maximum retry limit because those messages are sent in broadcast, therefore without the possibility to request an ACK at the link layer. Different solutions to ameliorate this issue should be considered, for instance sensor nodes could store the last path to the data collection unit to the next collection in case they do not receive the new message. Considering the low topology changes that are expected for the SYNCSEN network this solution will effectively solve the problem without involving more energy consumption in maintenance or error messages.
The D6-ANNEX includes a study on radio wave propagation inside buildings at 2.4 GHz and 868 MHz. The goal of this study about propagation at 868 MHz and 2.4 GHz band is to evaluate the most properly band to deploy the SYNCSEN wireless metering networks and understand the impairment that channel propagation can have on a deployed system. In order to validate the election of the 868 MHz band for the SYNCSEN network, 6 tests of 1000 measurements each were done at the UPF installations.
Work package 3: Hardware development
The main objective of WP3 consists in developing and validating the hardware platform that makes up the SYNCSEN network.
The aim of the deliverables 5 and 11 (reports on hardware development) was to provide a platform to carry out the project demonstration and validation tests with specific SYNCSEN hardware configuration, since this type of configuration is not currently available in the market. The TelosB (aka Tmote Sky) platform has been taken as reference design for this new development, in which a 868 MHz radio transceiver compliant with wireless M-Bus specification and a series of hardware modules (RDS, RTC and meter interface) has been added to the TelosB current design to provide the functionality required to handle automatic meter reading (AMR) applications based on SYNCSEN. Throughout the project lifetime the SYNCSEN mote has gone through four revisions - revision A to D.
Hardware development most significant results:
- Full hardware specification based on measurements of the final version of the SYNCSEN mote (revision D).
- 868 MHz radio transceiver fully compliant with wireless M-bus specification.
- Highly-integrated and small size RDS receiver based on Si4706 chip from Silabs which provides the best specifications over the competition.
- PCB spiral antenna in order to archive FM-RDS high-performance signal reception.
- RTC chip with oscillator compensation providing less than ±5 ppm drift over the full -40 °C to +85 °C temperature range (error < 1 second/month).
- A meter interface to connect the SYNCSEN platform with water and gas meters currently in use by Water Services Corporation (Malta) and Lowri-Beck System (UK) respectively.
- A SYNCSEN power consumption estimator application was developed to estimate the life time of a SYNCSEN mote based on accurate energy consumption measurements.
The aim of the deliverable 7 was to test the external synchronisation capabilities of the SYNCSEN platform. In SYNCSEN, external synchronisation is achieved through a common FM frequency which is available for all the network. Each node contains an RDS receiver chip, and the whole network is tuned to the same FM station. Each SYNCSEN mote will receive the clock, through RDS, and sync the onboard clock with that of the RDS. This makes the whole network in sync. If a node fails to wake up on the set time, due to a drift in its onboard clock system, it will re-sync its clock and put in sleep mode again. The Silicon Labs Si4706 chip was selected as an RDS receiver.
To test the reception of RDS in various places were utility meters are placed, an Si4706 evaluation board was bought and several tests around the island of Malta were done to test the RDS reception capabilities of the chip. Apart from the reception itself, a number of parameters were recorded, including the signal to noise ratio (SNR), and the block error rate.
The tests were done in six locations. The transmission antenna for the radio station selected (only one station transmits RDS in Malta) is situated in the centre of the Island. Locations that are within 3 - 5 km away from the antenna did not have any problem obtaining a fix on RDS but locations that were > 5 km away and were in a valley or behind a hill did not obtain RDS or obtained RDS with large error rates making the sync time too large (> 2 sec) hence unusable.
For prototype deliverable D12, a set of images of the SYNCSEN mote Beta prototype (revision B) are available.
Work package 4: Firmware implementation
D8 (Mid-term report on firmware development) describes the firmware implementation of the physical and data link layers of the SYNCSEN radio stack.
Section 2 shows the CC1101 register values calculation to configure the CC1101 radio transceiver according to the different operational modes (S, T, R2 and P) supported by the wireless M-bus standard. Several performance tests have been carried out using calculated register values in order to obtain the optimal ones. Measurements from SYNCSEN and commercial wireless M-bus devices have been performed to compare the physical layers.
Section 3 describes the SYNCSEN data link architecture, TelosB platform and Open Blaze platform from TinyOS repository has been used as starting point for implementing the SYNCSEN data link layer according to wireless M-bus specifications.
SYNCSEN Data Link most significant results:
- The SYNCSEN link layer is a protocol which transfers data between adjacent network nodes in a reliable way.
- When SYNCSEN nodes attempt to use the medium simultaneously, frame collisions occur. SYNCSEN link layer specify how devices detect and recover from such collisions (CSMA), but it does not prevent them from happening.
- The data transfer can be reliable or unreliable; wireless M-bus link layer provides ACKs of successful frame reception and acceptance as well as checksum to check for transmission errors.
- Long packet transmission / reception (> 450 bytes) supported.
- Packet encoding and decoding (Manchester and three out of siz) is performed as defined by the wireless M-bus standard.
- Information about the quality of the link (LQI) and signal strength (RSSI) is provided for network formation.
- Radio channel (up to 12), output power (-30 to +10 dBm) and WMBUS working mode (S, T, R or P) are also controlled by this layer.
The aim of D13 (Final report on firmware development) is to describe the SYNCSEN network and application layer implementations based on parts 3 and 5 of the EN 13757 and the implementation of the different drivers for the required hardware modules to support metering applications (RDS, RTC, meter interface), as described in WP1.
Section 2 describes the network layer. This layer falls under the fifth part of the wireless M-bus standard which defines the requirements for the protocols used in wireless meter networks, specifically for meter devices working in the 868 - 870 MHz band. Section 2.1 describes the two different relaying methods specified by the wireless M-bus standard: router and gateway relaying. Section 2.2 introduces an energy-aware low power listening (LPL) mechanism compliant with wireless M-bus specification. Sections 2.3 and 2.4 describe the error handling and time synchronisation mechanisms respectively as defined by the standard. Section 2.5 describes the wireless M-bus routing protocols (modes R2, P and Q). Section 2.6 describes the routing protocol that is adopted by SYNCSEN (mode-P). The tree creation and collection procedures that define the SYNCSEN network layer are also described in section 2.6. Section 2.7 lists and describes the SYNCSEN network configuration parameters and the recommended values to optimise network performance according to network simulation results. Network parameters include: collection duration; back-off duration; long preamble length; retransmission delay; maximum retry limit and end-to-end ACK. Finally, section 2.8 describes the SYNCSEN network layer architecture which is responsible for routing network packets.
Section 3 describes the application layer, which includes all transmitted data. Sections 3.1 and 3.2 explain the structure of the packets. Section 3.3 describes the application layer status and error reporting. Section 3.4 shows how alarm status reports are generated. Section 3.5 explains the structure of the encrypted telegrams and the encryption methods that can be implemented to secure the transmitted data. Finally, Section 3.6 describes the architecture of the application layer, highlighting its main features and current limitations. The RTC and RDS drivers are also explained in this section.
SYNCSEN network layer most significant results:
- provide routing packets delivery including route discovery and routing through intermediate routers as defined by EN-13757-5;
- consist of a routing engine (RE) and a forwarding engine (FE);
- RE discovers and maintains routes between any meter node and the network concentrator;
- FE routes data packets from any meter node to the network gateway;
- optimised according to simulation results obtained in WP2.
SYNCSEN application layer most significant results:
- address from meter readout to application layer telegrams, as defined by EN-13757-3;
- water, gas, heat and electric meters are fully supported;
- enable easy integration of vendor-specific meters;
- provide data encryption based on DES (ANSI X3.92:1981);
- support RTC and RDS drivers for external time synchronisation and pulse-based meter-reading.
Work package 5: System integration
The main objective of WP5 consists in integrating and pre-validating the SYNCSEN technology.
D14 (Integration and laboratory validation report) contains information on how to perform different tests to validate the performance of the SYNCSEN platform. It also describes the necessary steps and tools for carrying out these tests as well as the results obtained. Section 2 describes the SYNCSEN Dumper application. This is a graphical user interface which supports different types of data capture software applications which are suitable for debugging the most important modules of the SYNCSEN system. Current supported applications are:
(i) wireless M-bus packet sniffer;
(ii) RDS inspector; and
(iii) RTC inspector.
Section 3 describes the SYNCSEN packet sniffer application. This is a Java application which monitors the network activity by capturing wireless M-bus radio packets and breaks them down according to the wireless M-bus protocol specifications. This application has been widely used in validating the SYNCSEN stack with respect to the wireless M-bus specification and eliminating firmware bugs to guarantee correct operation of the system.
Section 4 describes the SYNCSEN RDS inspector application. This application monitors and displays the RDS receiver activity by capturing the RDS configuration and status registers from a SYNCSEN mote. Captured packets are broken down into individual components for packet content inspection. Required radio signal levels to keep the RDS in working order are also presented here.
Section 5 describes the SYNCSEN RTC inspector application. This application monitors and displays the RTC activity by capturing the RTC configuration and status registers from a SYNCSEN mote. Packets are broken down into individual components for packet content inspection. Graphical information about the RTC drift error versus ambient temperature is provided. Laboratory RTC drift error tests and recommended FM-RDS synchronisations per month are also presented here.
Section 6 describes the SYNCSEN mote test applications. The purpose of the test applications are:
(i) a better understanding of the SYNCSEN technology;
(ii) to provide mote firmware to be used together with the capture software applications mentioned before; and
(iii) to facilitate the manufacturing process of the SYNCSEN motes by testing the different mote parts: radio transceiver, real time clock (RTC), radio data service (RDS), the meter interface and the serial silicon number.
Test results about link layer performance are also presented here.
Section 7 describes the SYNCSEN star topology test application. This section describes the necessary steps required to test the wireless M-bus star topology using SYNCSEN motes. It includes tests from radio layer up to the application layer, excluding the network layer.
Section 8 describes the SYNCSEN tree topology test application which was used to perform the final SYNCSEN network demonstration in Malta (WP6). This section describes the necessary steps required to test the wireless M-bus tree topology using SYNCSEN motes. It includes tests from radio layer up to the application layer, including the network layer. Optimal network parameters were set according to results obtained in D6.
Section 9 describes the SYNCSEN service application. This Java application captures serial data protocols provided by the SYNCSEN motes (e.g. gateway). This application also provides processed information to the SYNCSEN high-level applications or graphical user interfaces such as SYNCSEN packet sniffer or SYNCSEN web applications.
Section 10 describes the SYNCSEN web application. This JavaScript application monitors SYNCSEN networks from a web browser in real-time and can be accessed from any remote internet access point.
Finally, section 11 provides results on the network pre-validation test carried out at UPF facilities where a network of 30 nodes was deployed for 2 months.
Additional notes:
- For range test, please refer to the new D6 Annex attached in this second project report.
- For housing and mechanical assembly to existing meter reading technologies, please refer to D11.
- For SYNCSEN mote power consumption analysis, please refer to D11.
- For prototype deliverable D15, a set of images of the SYNCSEN mote final prototype (revision D) are available.
Work package 6: System validation
The main objective of WP6 consists in validating the SYNCSEN technology and includes the following three major tasks:
1) choice of a suitable test bed location in Malta;
2) development, manufacturing and testing of SYNCSEN nodes;
3) SYNCSEN network commissioning in Malta.
These tasks are summarised below:
Task 1: Choice of a suitable test bed location in Malta
The test bed location was chosen according to four attributes:
(i) RDS signal strength measurements obtained from the external synchronisation tests;
(ii) a location that contains a variety of buildings;
(iii) a strategic and secure place where to install the network gateway; and
(iv) a location where a rapid response to any network malfunction is ensured.
Details can be found in deliverables D7 and D18.
Task 2: Development, manufacturing and testing of SYNCSEN nodes
During the last year of the project, the SYNCSEN hardware was upgraded from revision A and B (developed during the first year) to revision C and D. The upgrade consisted of the addition of system blocks, including the RDS, RTC and meter interface modules. Power consumption analysis were carried out for each state of the SYNCSEN node (active and sleep mode). In total 200 revision D SYNCSEN nodes and CC1101 transceivers were manufactured. After manufacturing and assembly, the nodes were tested. Five software programs were purposefully developed to the test the functionality of the nodes. The electronic circuits were placed inside water-tight enclosures which were manufactured to allow the RF antenna, RDS antenna and meter probe to be mounted outside.
Fifty SYNCSEN nodes were flashed with the new demo firmware (see SYNCSEN tree Topology test application in WP5) and 5 demo kits containing 10 nodes each were distributed to the five participating SME partners. Thirty nodes were given to UPF to carry out initial network tests before network commissioning in Malta took place. The purpose of this test was to detect any software bugs present in the system at early stage. These were detected and corrected before the real test in Malta took place. The remaining 120 nodes were used for network commissioning in Malta.
More information about SYNCSEN mote manufacturing and testing can be found in deliverables D11 and D14.
Task 3: SYNCSEN network commissioning in Malta
SYNCSEN network commissioning was performed in the locality of San Gwann in Malta. Two networks were deployed with the assistance of Water Services Corporation (WSC). Network A was installed in an area that contains old apartments, residential houses and new apartments. Network B was installed in an area that contains old apartments and houses. Test data over a period of two months was collected and used to obtain network performance results.
In Network A, only 25 nodes (including the bridge nodes) managed to connect with the coordinator. Only 18 nodes were noticed to come online all the time. In network B, six nodes successfully connected with the coordinator.
The results indicate that the wireless range of the nodes is too short for the scenario in San Gwann. Networks A and B contain 'isolated' nodes, i.e. locations where the nodes are unreachable with the current WSC installations services. The power of the RF transceiver is not strong enough to reach the nearest meter. Moreover, the reason why network B had so few nodes that connected to the coordinator is that the transmission path between the coordinator and the nodes was heavily affected by the large building structures that lie in the way. Also the location of network B lies at least 4 m under ground level. The end result is that the signal is highly attenuated and dispersed; therefore it is very weak and is not received by the meter nodes.
It is recommended that planning / simulation of network deployment prior to actual installation is done for determining locations where to install 'strategic' nodes. Strategic nodes need not be connected to a meter, but their purpose would be to ensure that there are no isolated nodes in the network.
The results reveal that bridge nodes ('repeaters') have to be installed in strategic locations to solve the isolation problem. In practice, this is a limitation since strategic locations may not always fall on utility company property. Another solution would be to increase the transmission power of the nodes. A new 868 MHz radio front-end that can reach a transmission power up to 500 mW can be designed. This modification involves adding external components to the CC1101 RF chip. These components are a power amplifier (PA) in the transmitting path and a low noise amplifier (LNA) in the receiving path. Only the RF PCB would need to be changed. The main PCB board would remain the same. Texas Instruments produce these components that match with the CC1101. The disadvantage of using a higher power is that the power consumption is slightly increased. However, this will have a negligible effect since most of the time the network will be in sleep mode. Another drawback is that the maximum power stipulated by the Wireless M-bus standard will be surpassed. In less than a year, the wireless M-bus standard will allow for transmission in the 169 MHz channel. Having a lower frequency (VHF spectrum) will automatically increase the range without the need of adding extra components for signal amplification / boosting. The interesting part is that this frequency is reserved for utility companies.
Another property that was observed during installation is the positioning of the node (antenna). This was found to be extremely critical for wireless range especially in sub ground level installations. A lower positioning or slight tilt of the antenna from the perpendicular axis can signify a disconnection and in many cases isolation. Since this was a temporary test the meter was tied to a water pipe using a set of tie clips. Therefore, optimum placement was not always possible. In real installation scenarios it is important to install the nodes in an upright position with the antenna perpendicular to the ground.
The average installation rate was of 8 nodes/hour. The installation time can be further reduced if the enclosure had been already closed and sealed. In this case an external indicator (such as an LED in a sealed window) must be fit to verify RDS connection at the installation location.
Even though the installation method is relatively quick it still has a drawback since it is difficult to know immediately (upon installation) if the node has successfully connected to the network or not. This information is only available each time the network wakes up on the hour. Also, testing for the range with test nodes is not a practical solution due to the unknown architecture of the tree network and the hop-count constraint that the wireless M-bus protocol poses.
More details can be found in deliverable D18.
Currently, a new network commissioning is being carried out in UK with the assistance of Lowri-Beck System.
Network installation and maintenance procedures
The main objective of D17 consists in providing a set of procedures for SYNCSEN network installation a maintenance.
The public part of D17 (sections 1 through 4) provides SYNCSEN network installers with a detailed guide to carry out the commissioning of a SYNCSEN network. This document is updated according to the latest SYNCSEN software release (1.8) available in the project FTP server and installers should not have any problem installing a network if all the steps described are followed correctly.
This document forms part of the documentation of the SYNCSEN start-up kit which was sent to the partners for training purposes at month 21 of the project. This document was also distributed to the Water Service Corporation (WSC) meter installers before starting the final SYNCSEN network commissioning which took place in Malta in October 2011.
The document is divided into three parts. The second section describes the installation of the SYNCSEN motes. Different aspects such as mote physical location, interface with a meter and final mote checkout are considered. Furthermore, due to the differences and particularities of each installation, a set of general recommendations have also been included to cover the common problems during SYNCSEN mote deployment. Section 3 of the document describes the required steps to install the SYNCSEN server application (SSA) which constituted of three different software components: the SYNCSEN Database, the SYNCSEN web application and the SYNCSEN service. Information about how to configure a server to support these software components has also been included. Section 4 is a user's manual which describes the SYNCSEN web application (SWA), an easy and friendly web interface to access to the SYNCSEN network(s) data from a remote browser.
The private part of D17 (section 5 through 6) provides detailed information about the required steps to install SYNCSEN development suite (SDS). All SDS is based on open-source and license-free code and is fully integrated in Eclipse IDE for easy platform development and maintenance.
Section 5 contains a description of the installation and configuration of the different software tools which constitute the SYNCSEN DS: Java SDK, TinyOS, Eclipse, Tomcat, MySQL, etc.
Section 6 describes how to import, build and flash an existing SYNCSEN project. A brief introduction to the different SYNCSEN applications developed during the project (e.g. radio layers, program tests, java application tools, etc.) as well as information about the integration of the SYNCSEN program into the TinyOS tree is also provided
Work package 7: Facilitating the take up of results
D7 contains information about dissemination and exploitation activities carried out during the project.
An overview of the dissemination activities done from the project start is provided, including: official web page, research connection congress, project brochure, metering and billing / CRM Europe Conference and Exhibition 2009, Wikipedia entry, project White Paper, dissemination survey, metering and billing / CRM Europe Conference and Exhibition 2010, live web application, dissemination slides and poster, research article, etc.
With respect to exploitation activities, the SMEs have reached an agreement on the terms and conditions that will regulate their relation as joint owners and allow the exploitation of the project results by each one of them in its country of establishment, as well as the possible licensing of SYNCSEN to third parties. The headings of the Agreement between the project SMEs are included in D19.
Moreover, the SMEs have drawn a concrete strategy for the protection of the project results by trade secrets, copyright and technological measures (restricted access to source code), a brand name and trade mark. The option of patenting is analysed in D19 and left open for the (possibly near) future.
Finally, as detailed in D19, the partners have also undertaken activities related to the effective knowledge transfer (in particular start-up kits), standardisation, partner search and market forecasts.
Potential impact:
The potential market: There were 2.8 billion estimated meters in the world in 2010. These consisted of 1554 million electricity meters, 395 million gas meters and 856 million water meters. Europe accounted for 12.1 % of all meter demand. There were approximately 340 million meters in the EU, including Norway and Switzerland.
The expected growth rate for the water meter market is 7.3 % and for the gas meter market 4.3 % in the coming years. It is predicted that wireless ARM solutions will account for 21 % of all AMR endpoints shipped in 2010; this will result in a total potential market of 6.2 million meters/year for new market. In addition to the market for a new wireless meters we estimated a potential (static) retrofit market of 84,3 million. We expect SYNCSEN technology to capture at least 0,04 % of new wireless ARM market in 5 years and also 0.015 % of the retrofit market (using wireless technology) in 5 years. Considering that:
1) an average selling price for a wireless SYNCSEN OEM module will be EUR 10 - 12 for module manufacturers;
2) an average selling price of EUR 40 - 55 for new smart meters; and
3) an average selling price of EUR 20 - 35 for retrofit device.
All dissemination activities have been carried out with the approval of all partners and in due observance of confidentiality obligations for project results that are protected as trade secrets.
The UPF prepared a dissemination survey in order to collect the partners' view about:
(i) publications / speeches at international conferences;
(ii) material for commercial dissemination;
(iii) other possible dissemination activities.
All partners participated in the survey, with the following results:
1. Not all the partners agreed with the publication of a research article presenting SYNCSEN to the scientific community. In particular, the SMEs have expressed concerns regarding the protection of confidential information generated by the project. Eventually, after discussion in several meetings, the partners reached an agreement on the content of such article at the month 18 meeting. Researchers from UPF and CRIC have already drafted the article in question, which was subsequently revised by the SMEs and eventually approved for publication in the Sensors journal in November 2011.
2. The SMEs provided some additional ideas regarding dissemination material, leading to the creation of a detailed business White Paper, a presentation and a poster (please see further details below).
3. The SMEs expressed their wish to receive start-up kits by the RTD performers, which would facilitate the system validation and the SYNCSEN technology tranfer.
4. The SMEs also supported the development of the SYNCSEN web application to perform live demontrations in fairs and for clients.
5. Finally, all partners agreed to improve the SYNCSEN website and maintain it updated with information and news about the project.
The dissemination of the SYNCSEN project can be divided into three different groups depending on the target audience:
(1) companies that will: a) use the technology and/or b) purchase the technology;
(2) general public; and
(3) scientific community.
Depending on the target audience the issues to be disseminated differ as well as the forums where the dissemination takes place.
General dissemination initiated at the beginning of the project with the creation of the SYNCSEN website. As the project work developed and results were achieved, dissemination actions became more frequent and targeted to the industry. The partners in fairs and conferences did not use any specific forms or other written records of the number of visitors, questions regarding the SYNCSEN solution, interest in collaborations, etc. that occurred every time SYNCSEN was presented in an international fair. Nevertheless, many attendants requested additional information on the solution and were provided with such information and the contact of the project partners. In some occasions these contacts led to further discussions on potential collaborations. Moreover, the participation in these fairs also contributed to a broader dissemination of the solution to potential buyers / licensees / end-users, whose benefits will be hopefully obvious as soon as the project SMEs put the solution on the market. Hence, overall speaking, the evaluation of SYNCSEN presentation in fairs is extremely positive and the project SMEs will repeat such presentations after the project.
It was agreed at the 18 month meeting that a scientific paper regarding SYNCSEN should be published and that UPF would provide the partners with a general structure of the paper for approval. From the UPF point of view, it is interesting to present the testbed results in order to increase the scientific value of the article. At the same time, the SMEs wished to restrict the amount of technical details included in the article. The disagreement postponed the publication of the article in several occasions. Eventually, an agreement has been reached; the article has been drafted by researchers at UPF and CRIC and successfully submitted to the approval of the SMEs. It has already been accepted for publication by the Sensors journal (November 2011).
The expected benefits:
The SMEs involved have envisaged the SYNCSEN project to lead to a total economic impact to be in the region EUR 5 million in 2012, resulting in a return on investment ratio (ROI) of 1:8 (the partners investment considered is of EUR 600 000) due to the benefits related to reduce the negative balance in the supply and consumption of gas and water resulting from faulty meter readings. The total profit for SMEs is estimated at EUR 1.5 million in 2012.
The market approach:
Due to the uniqueness of SYNCSEN, the 0,04 and 0,015 of initial penetration in the current European market are very modest estimations. The SMEs strongly believe that the real market for this technology is much higher. The SMEs will contribute to a common marketing approach, taking up from the dissemination activities of the project and including the following actions:
1) a widespread marketing campaign targeting water and gas suppliers and metering companies, drawing on the use cases established by SYNCSEN;
2) leveraging of the industrial contacts and client bases of the project SMEs and others;
3) large scale advertising campaign in metering industry and utilities related publications.
The objective of the project was not only to develop the SYNCSEN solution but also to prepare the ground for its integration into the existing services provided by the SMEs of the project, thus ensuring its exploitation on the market. Moreover, the goal of the SMEs was also to establish contacts with key companies that could be interested in acquiring a licence to use the technology, further contributing to its exploitation and generating additional income for the SMEs. The exploitation manager, Mr Tamas Boday from CASON, was responsible for coordinating the SMEs' efforts towards the protection and exploitation of the project results. In particular, Mr Tamas Boday was contributing in:
(i) ensuring a comprehensive transfer of all knowledge related to the SYNCSEN;
(ii) technology and all results of the project from the RTD performers to the SMEs;
(iii) gathering the views of the SMEs on the best means to protect the innovative results generated by the project;
(iv) coordinating discussions between the SMEs regarding the exploitation of the SYNCSEN solution by the SMEs themselves (in their respective countries of establishment) and by third parties through licensing;
(v) resolving disagreements between the SMEs and the RTD performers regarding the dissemination of the project results against their protection as trade secrets; and
(vi) reporting the actions and plans of the SMEs for the protection, use and dissemination of the foreground generated by the project.
The SMEs are the exclusive joint owners of all foreground generated in the project, but the effective exploitation of such foreground requires more than the title. The SMEs have expressed from the very beginning of the project their intention to keep up closely with the work of the RTD performers, so as to follow its development and understand its nature. As results were generated the RTD performers transferred them to the SMEs, together with specific explanations on the tests carried out, demonstration of best practices for using the technology and additional support. This constant exchange, mainly carried out during project meetings, allowed the SMEs to express their doubts and requests for improvement, steering the work of the RTD performers towards the optimum solutions by industrial and market standards such as the wireless M-bus standard (EN 13757). As the project reached its final stages (month 20), the RTD performers started the preparation of SYNCSEN start-up kits that would include all the information and data necessary to test and swiftly exploit the results of the project.
According to the schedule agreed by the partners at the beginning of the project and provided for in the description of work, the SMEs should be capable of exploiting the SYNCSEN solution in the first year after the end of the project. To achieve this, three elements are necessary:
(i) further testing of the technology and adaptation to the needs of local markets;
(ii) specific business plans to match the particularities of local markets; and
(iii) networking activities with third parties interested in the commercialisation of the technology.
At present, several such actions have taken place. Partners CASON and TRITECK have already plans for carrying our further testing of the technology and integration to their current solutions and services. The SMEs are ready to implement the tests and have requested support from the RTD performers, mainly CRIC, in this task. CRIC has undertaken to provide such support and the parties are currently discussing the details of the additional work to be carried out. CASON is also considering similar activities, while all SMEs expressed their interest for mutual information in new developments. Furthermore, LBS is also considering the integration of the SYNCSEN solution in its services, as it will be shown hereunder. LBS has been very active in networking activities, primarily at the congresses and fairs described in section above. It is relevant to highlight among these contacts the one between LBS and Sensus4, a US-based leader of the smart metering market. Sensus expressed its interest in the technology and requested additional information in order to evaluate a possible collaboration. LBS announced this fact at the consortium meeting held on 2 July 2010 in Dublin and presented the confidentiality agreement that intended to sign with Sensus, on behalf of the consortium, in order to engage conversations. The rest of the SMEs studied the case and provided their approval. LBS is currently discussing the potential of the technology with Sensus. It will report to the SMEs in due time. Similarly, OSSIDIAN, an SME which works as an intermediary offering complete solutions to clients, is already studying the integration of SYNCSEN to the services provided to its clients and has already discussed the benefits of the solution with them. Once again, this contributes further to the dissemination and promotion of the SYNCSEN solution and will hopefully contribute to its prompt commercialisation. Finally, all SMEs are currently studying the exploitation potential of SYNCSEN within their local markets and drawing specific business plans to match their respective commercialisation strategies.
As explained in deliverable D19, the SMEs have considered patenting the technology. Nevertheless, and following their discussions, patent rights are not the best means to protect SYNCSEN, for several reasons.
(i) The main innovation behind the SYNCSEN solution is software code, mainly the firmware code incorporated in the SYNCSEN hardware and the operating software. The hardware itself is mainly composed by so-called 'off-the-shelf' elements, already covered by the state of the art. SYNCSEN could be treated as a computer implemented method and possibly qualify for patent protection. Nevertheless, it is not clear how strong the claims of such patent would be compared to other means for protecting the technology, namely copyright and trade secrets.
(ii) Moreover, patent application procedures last for several years, while technological developments in the metering sector are evolving rapidly to match the growing needs of the market. Once again, and although SYNCSEN is a technology with a large expected lifetime as it will be shown hereunder, it was not clear that the solution will remain innovative in its current state of development for a considerable number of years, so as to justify high patenting costs. It is more likely that the SMEs themselves further develop SYNCSEN-based solutions, which in the course of time would reduce the value of the initial patent.
(iii) Finally, patent costs would be considerable, since SYNCSEN should be protected as minimum in all the countries where the SMEs are established and possibly extended to countries of potential licensees, within the priority year. For the above reasons, the project SMEs have discarded patent protection for the moment. Nevertheless, as previously mentioned, they are strongly considering patenting wireless M-bus patents in active network inspection and remote firmware updating in the future, to facilitate network deployment and maintence, respectively.
Copyright and trade secrets can be equally efficient to protect the project foreground. Both the RTD performers and the SMEs have been particularly cautious in preserving the SYNCSEN source code as a trade secret. This included specific instructions to their employees. Moreover, the following copyright disclaimer was attached to all dissemination and other material incorporating SYNCSEN (besides technological protection measures for the source code), to make users aware of the existence of proprietary rights and prevent against any intents to decipher the source code:
Copyright © 2009 - 2011 SMEs and LBS of SYNCSEN consortium - All rights reserved. You may not copy, redistribute, make derivative works of, decipher by reverse engineering or otherwise use the Software without previous written authorisation by the right holders.
Similarly, the project partners also required the signature of confidentiality agreements by third parties which acquired a deeper understanding of the SYNCSEN technology. Finally, the word 'SYNCSEN' is already used by the project SMEs as a brand name, both in dissemination actions and contacts with third parties interested in the technology. Moreover, the domain name 'SYNCSEN.com' is already property of the project SMEs. Similarly, the word is attached to any other communication or material related to the project. The intention of the SMEs is to register 'SYNCSEN' as a community trade mark before launching any related services on the market.
The address of the project public website, if applicable as well as relevant contact details.
Project links
web: http://syncsen.cric-projects.com
wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncsen_project
life: http://82.223.161.209:10000/syncserver/info.jsp
Project partners
SME: CASON Engineering Plc. Mr Tamás Boday, tamas.boday@cason.hu
SME: Tritech Technology AB, Mr Gosis Loow Gosia.Loow@tritech.se
SME: Ossidian Technologies Ltd. Mr Donald Hickey, donald.hickey@ossidian.com
SME: JCB Electromecánica S.L. Mr Narcís Clavell, narcis. clavell@cric.cat
OTHER: Lowri Beck Systems Ltd. Mr John Heath, john.heath@lowribeck.co.uk
Other: Water Services Corp., Mr Stephen Galea St John, stphen.galeastjohn@wsc.com.mt
RTD: Centre de Recerca I Investigació de Catalunya S.A. Mr Josep Perello, josep.perello@cric.cat and Pancraç Villalonga, pancras.villalonga@cric.cat
RTD: Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Mr Boris Bellalta, boris.bellalta@
RTD: Malta Innovation for Industrial SMEs, M. Michael Bonello, michael.bonello@miis.com.mt