For Peter Kalantzis, IP fits his wireless sensor networks like a glove. The director of engineering at Fast Heat, Inc. says the IP protocol beat out others — the field includes contenders such as ZigBee and WirelessHART — as the go-to connection method.
Fast Heat is looking to establish itself in the energy management sector with a sensor-based offering that gives industrial customers granular data on how they consume energy — down to individual pieces of factory equipment. The company dates to 1957 and has a long history in the temperature sensor business.
Kalantzis and his employer have joined a growing chorus in manufacturing and technology circles calling for WSNs to run on the same protocol that runs the Internet. As the thinking goes, almost all data these days ends up on an IP-based corporate backbone, so why not use IP all the way to the edge of the network, where sensors reside?
Fast Heat uses Arch Rock’s technology as the wireless network backbone for its sensor-based application. “The proprietary stuff is good,” Kalantzis says, “but we found that the open architecture of IP-based just made it that much simpler for us to access and get up and running.”