Overview
Voltaic’s Core Solar Systems were designed to provide easy to deploy, scalable power for a range of industrial IoT devices including: IP and Edge AI cameras, LoRaWAN gateways, cellular routers and air quality monitoring equipment. Given the value of the data and remote nature of many of the installations, Voltaic has developed a battery health monitoring system, powered by Qubitro and Blues Wireless. The goals of the monitoring system are:
- Confirm a successful deployment for the installation team
- Provide details on battery state of charge, power production and power consumption
- Warn users of potential incidents before the load is lost (i.e. tree falls on solar panel)
- Shorten troubleshooting process in the event the end device stops reporting
How it Works
The cellular device is pre-installed and sealed inside the battery prior to shipment. Once the battery is connected to a device, the system sends details on the solar panel and battery to the dashboard every 20 minutes.
Technicians can scan the QR code on the side of the battery to access the dashboard and see whether the solar panel is producing power and the battery is providing power to the end device. Customer administrators can login to see a dashboard of all of their systems and track both the installation process and long term performance.
Diagnostic Information
The dashboard, based on the Quibitro IoT platform, displays a range of useful information including current status as well as time-series data.
The first level of data provides a thumbnail sketch of the system for users to get a quick idea of whether the system is performing as expected.
- Online / Offline status
- Estimated battery charge level (state of charge)
- Uptime
- Time since last data received
- Power input from solar panel
- Power output from battery to device
- Battery temperature
More detailed, time-series graphs provide information that can be helpful in diagnosing a system. If the battery is running low, is it because the power consumption is higher than expected? In this graph, the state of charge percentage begins to decline (green) because of an increase in the load power out (yellow) and a series of cloudy days causing the solar panel output to be low (orange).
Connectivity
All monitoring systems include a Blues Wireless Notecard operating at LTE Cat 1. Based on our testing and conversations with experienced industry professionals, Cat 1 provides the highest certainty of connectivity in both urban and rural areas.
A LoRaWAN option is in development which can reduce hardware and data costs in many environments.
Large Deployments
The monitoring system is designed to accommodate fleets of devices. Customer administrators have access to individual dashboards for each of their devices, as well as an at-a-glance interface of all of their systems. The goal is to provide administrators with the ability to check on all of their systems quickly and easily without diving into the details of each one.
Soon, the monitoring system will provide automatic notifications to users to warn them when the battery level is unexpectedly low or when the solar panel has stopped outputting power on a sunny day.
