RLE Technologies: Efficient Mission Critical Infrastructure Monitoring

Jeremy Swanner, President

Throughout its 34 years in the data center industry RLE Technologies, a proven leader in leak detection and monitoring, has relied on innovation and experience to exceed customer expectations and predict trends in the marketspace. Never has this been more evident than with the launch of their newest platform, WiNG. WiNG is a wireless sensor network that provides a holistic, real-time view of a facility and its infrastructure components. Developing their own wireless sensors had been a goal of RLE’s for quite a few years, and the launch of this platform is a milestone for both the company and the monitoring industry.

“We’ve offered third-party wireless sensors that communicate with our own network manager. These sensors were adequate, but our engineers and sales team persistently noted areas of improvement that they, and our customers, wanted to see–like improved battery life and a broader transmission range,” notes Jeremy Swanner, President of RLE Technologies. “Our engineers saw great potential and embraced the challenge of creating a better system of wireless sensors and monitoring hardware.”

Through customer feedback and field research, RLE pinpointed the features they wanted to improve with their platform. “When it comes down to it,” says Swanner, “There are five factors that influence decisions in a wireless monitoring purchase: battery life, transmission range, data reliability, integration capabilities, and of course cost.

Our engineers saw great potential and embraced the challenge of creating a better system of wireless sensors and monitoring hardware

We made it our goal to clear as many of those gates as possible.”

Their results are impressive. Since all the sensors in a wireless network are battery powered, battery life is critical. While most other providers offering 2-4 year battery life for their products, RLE’s metrics—up to 12 year battery life—set a new benchmark in the industry. And they’ve accomplished this without sacrificing transmission range. RLE’s sensors transmit up to 270’ through one wall, and up to 600’ direct line of sight. Add range extenders to pick up an additional 1,000’ per range extender.

RLE is widely known for its protocol integration, which is included in the WiNG-MGR. “Most of our customers have large BMS/DCiM systems. We don’t want to compete with those systems; we work with them. While the WiNG-MGR has a very intuitive UI and works well as a stand-alone product, it also communicates via SNMP, Modbus, and BACnet. This means it integrates seamlessly into larger DCiMs and provides users with that single pane of glass facility view they’re looking for.Plus, our products are firmware based—users don’t have to install software on their systems and do not see recurring costs of any kind. You buy it, you own it.”

RLE’s product development cycle is rooted in testing and their engineers were passionate about the data integrity of the WiNG platform. RLE’s engineers wanted to make sure customers knew the answers to questions like: how often is a complete data packet received by the manager or gateway? And: are you really looking at real time data or a buffered and repeated value? RLE’s sensors and gateway demonstrate an accuracy of packet transmission above 98 percent , ensuring the data a user sees is indeed timely and most definitely accurate.

What’s next for RLE’s WiNG wireless platform? Engineers are currently in Beta testing with an 868MHz version of the product for an international marketspace and are developing sensors that monitor airflow, accept digital inputs, and work with RLE’s patented leak detection cables–all of which will prove to be fantastic additions to an already robust product offering from a trusted leader in facility monitoring.