Applications and Support & Resources

Application Overview

Kantronics products are well suited to a broad range of applications.

These applications include:

Telemetry

Literally "measurement at a distance", telemetry is used for monitoring environmental conditions or system and equipment status at remote locations. Examples of environmental monitoring include weather, river flow rates and water levels, seismic activity, pollution levels, and traffic/road condition monitoring. Typical system monitoring and equipment status applications include pipelines, electric power transmission lines, water and wastewater treatment plants. Any time you need to measure something located in an inconvenient, inhospitable, or moving location, on a continuous or periodic basis, you have a good application for telemetry.

Kantronics offers a several products addressing the needs of telemetry applications. Our Talon UDC Data Radios combine a radio modem and transmitter in a self-contained, compact package. All you have to add are power and an antenna. These data radios are available with built-in analog and digital inputs and outputs, further minimizing external cabling and equipment. These data radios are available for VHF or UHF Land Mobile Radio bands. For telemetry applications requiring location, velocity, or extremely accurate time information along with the sensor data, these data radios are available with a built-in GPS module. For applications where the data to be monitored is already in serial form, the Talon offers a serial port.

Kantronics provides a user-configurable sample telemetry application free for use with our Talon data radios. You can download a copy (ZIP, 353k) to get a glimpse of what is possible. The program requires Microsoft .Net framework to run. See the readme.txt file in the .zip file. While you obviously won't see live data unless you have a Talon data radio, you can configure the sites and displays without the radios.

If you need to operate in other radio bands, or dual-band configurations as part of a network, or simply wish to re-utilize existing radio equipment, consider our commercial radio modem/TNC products. These include the KWM-1200+ single-port, low-speed modem, and the KWM-9612+ dual port, high speed modem. Both modems include built-in A/D and serial inputs.

All of these products are designed to meet the needs of telemetry applications. They offer high reliability, operate well even in rugged environments, and require low power. They are just as well suited to remote or mobile application as to urban, fixed location use.

Compare the Kantronics-based solutions to the disadvantages of the following alternatives in today's marketplace

Land lines These incur monthly costs
(frequently increasing with physical distance), and are not an option in remote or mobile locations. They are also more susceptible to outages requiring repair, due to their physical link (vulnerable to induced surges and cable cuts).
Cell-phone based systems
While cellular companies are increasingly offering data options, they come with high recurring monthly costs, limited coverage areas, and spottier reliability. Data needs are being addressed as an afterthought, with corresponding problems such as difficult and non-standard cabling to user data acquisition equipment, little provision for external antennas to address poor site-line to the cell network, and lack of control over device power. (Some equipment specifically sold as cellular modems has no way to turn the unit on or off except via the handset, making power management difficult!) In addtion, most cellular equipment is not designed for harsh environmental conditions.
Satellite-based systems
While satellite-based systems can offer excellent coverage area, it comes at high initial and ongoing costs. It also comes with high power consumption and equipment environment constraints. Satellite communications is also subject to rain fade (loss of signal during rain between the ground station and satellite), and signal delay due to the increased distance the signal must travel.

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA)

SCADA systems add Supervisory Control to the Data Acquisition function of telemetry systems. Supervisory control can analyze the data acquired from remote equipment throughout a system, and command corresponding adjustments across the system to maintain safe, efficient operation. In utility applications, these adjustments can redistribute power, or pipeline flow, to best serve current demand, and to bypass equipment failures and safeguard equipment and operations.

While mobile equipment location and dispatch could fit within the definition of SCADA systems, the specialized needs of the application are addressed on our Vehicle Tracking applications page.

SCADA system users demand highly reliable communications equipment, and Kantronics delivers. Reliability starts at the factory with thorough product testing before the equipment goes out the door, resulting in a low 0.003% warranty return rate. Our quality firmware follows up with error detection to ensure that data reception errors don't make it through to your system. A choice of protocols allows you to select the operating modes most appropriate to your application. All along the way, our friendly and experienced staff stand ready to assist you in selecting the most appropriate solutions for your communication needs, including the following Kantronics models:

Talon UDC Data Radios combine a radio modem and transmitter in a self-contained, compact package. All you have to add are power and an antenna. These data radios are available with built-in analog and digital inputs and outputs in addition to the standard I/O, further minimizing external cabling and equipment. These data radios are available in VHF or UHF Land Mobile Radio bands. If your system includes mobile components, Talon radios are available with a built-in GPS module. See the Telemetry page for a free user-configurable telemetry and control program for use with Talon data radios.

All of these products are designed to meet the needs of SCADA applications. They offer high reliability, operate well even in rugged environments, and require low power. They are just as well suited to remote or mobile application as to urban, fixed location use.

Free yourself from the high monthly line charges, bulky equipment, and the susceptability to physical interruption or system congestion of other alternatives with Kantronics digital communications radios.

Vehicle Tracking

Sometimes called AVL (Automatic Vehicle Location), vehicle tracking provides useful information to fleet owners, construction, transportation, service and sales companies, about the location of the vehicles, mobile equipment and employees. These systems fall into two categories, with overlapping application:

Active tracking conveys the location information immediately via a radio link, and allows for two-way communication to reallocate vehicles (buses, for example) in the field to meet current needs. Compared to voice dispatch systems, automatic digital transmission of vehicle location allows the driver to focus on driving, and can continue to report position even if the driver is away from the vehicle or incapacitated, a definite aid in emergency situations.

Passive tracking simply records the location/time/speed information for later retrieval, avoiding the cost of radio equipment when immediate action on the information is not required. An example of passive tracking application would be to examine sales and delivery routes over time to help determine more effective, less costly routes.

Kantronics Active Tracking Products

Ideal for active tracking applications, Kantronics Talon UDC Data Radios combine a radio modem, transmitter, and optional GPS module in a self-contained, compact package. All you have to add are power and an antenna. These data radios are available with built-in analog and digital inputs and outputs in addition to the standard I/O, further minimizing external cabling and equipment. These data radios are available in VHF or UHF Land Mobile Radio bands.

If you need to operate in other radio bands, or wish to re-utilize existing radio equipment, consider our commercial radio modem/TNC products. These include the KWM-1200+ single-port, low-speed modem, and the KWM-9612+ dual port, high speed modem. Both modems include built-in A/D and serial inputs as well as the ability to transmit location information acquired from external NMEA-0183 compatible GPS receivers.

All of Kantronics' radio modems can be used with APRS® Automatic Position Reporting System software. You can find out more about APRS® at www.aprs.org.

Kantronics Passive Tracking Products

Combining a GPS receiver with a data logger and removable solid-state storage, Kantronics KML-5000 Passive Tracker is designed expressly to meet the needs of passive tracking applications. The KML-5000 can retain 36 eight-hour days worth of location, time, and velocity information internally, which can be transferred at any convenient time to a removable memory card for later analysis. The tracker then continues to record additional tracking information, all without removal of the KML-5000 itself. With easy installation and rugged packaging, this unit provides an ideal solution to your passive tracking needs. Kantronics provides a free software interface module allowing data captured by the KML-5000 to be used with the powerful Microsoft MapPoint® 2004 business mapping software.

APRS® is a registered trademark of Bob Bruninga, WB4APR.
MapPoint is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.

HF e-mail

Keeping in touch with the rest of the world can be challenging in remote locations. There aren't too many cell phone towers in the open ocean! Kantronics comes to the rescue with radio equipment that can provide reliable communications over long distances, without the bulk, complexity, power, and environmental constraints of satellite equipment.

While all Kantronics radio modems/TNC's can communicate digital messages over distances, the HF frequency bands are particularly conducive to longer distance communication, since they don't rely only on line of site transmission. This makes the Kantronics all-mode KAM-XL the most appropriate choice for this application. The KAM-XL has built-in visual confirmation of "free" (channel available) signals of HF e-mail service providers.

Application Notes

The following application notes provide more information on HF e-mail and ocean communications with the KAM-XL radio modem:

Maritime communications using HF E-mail with the KAM-98 or KAM-XL, step by step.
Maritime communications on an Alaskan cruise.

The Best Solution

Kantronics offers many advantages over competing products in the marketplace. Over thirty-four years in the marketplace Kantronics has established a reputation for extremely reliable, rugged, dependable equipment. This translates to reduced costs of operation, sparing you lost data and expensive trips to the field to troubleshoot malfunctioning equipment.

Kantronics products provide a solution free of the monthly fees, constrained coverage areas, and dropped calls of cellular systems. Our built-in data acquisition features and knowledgeable staff can simplify the task and lower the cost of implementing your applications. With Kantronics, data is not an afterthought, unlike consumer-oriented systems.

The low power requirements, portability, environmental ruggedness, and lower susceptibility to rain fade give Kantronics products big performance advantages over satellite-based systems, in addition to lower entry and ongoing costs.

Sometimes "off the shelf" equipment just doesn't meet the need. Kantronics can work with larger customers and OEM's to provide solutions custom tailored to your needs.

It is no wonder that customers with critical data reliability needs (including NASA, the United States Coast Guard, pipeline operators, and police departments) have selected Kantronics equipment. As one customer says, "Kantronics Modems: The data you send, is what is received. At times lives will depend on that. Depend on Kantronics."

Application Assistance
Our sales and support department are ready to provide guidance in selecting the best solution for your application, and to support you after the sale. We take the time to make sure you get the right equipment for your needs. Contact us (see contact info below) and let's get started.

We also share our experience with you via application notes, giving helpful tips and step-by-step information on using Kantronics equipment for particular applications.