"Making Sensors Wireless™"

Wireless technology enables many new opportunities for today’s businesses. Wi-Fi® access points are as commonplace as the PC in our places of work. While current Wi-Fi® access points that make up the wireless infrastructure are predominantly focused on commercial and PC applications the infrastructure is strong and pervasive for use by other devices. Analysts predicted that by 2006 there would be 99 million Wi-Fi® users and 89,000 public Wi-Fi® access points around the world. That number has been exceeded. The IMPORTANT NOTE is that the infrastructure exists.

So Why Wi-Fi® and OSM?

To enable all sensor manufacturers to take advantage of the current infrastructure trends OSM has developed a low power and easy to implement Wireless Sensor Module (WSeM™). The advantages for manufacturers are abundant: Wiring is expensive and in most applications costs 4 to 5 times the price of the actual sensor. Existing commercial buildings and factories pose greater barriers to sensor installations due to their loaded cable trays and lack of space for additional cables. Single point sensing devices powered by batteries solve several installation issues.

So How Do You Make Sensors Wireless?

Conceptually the “heavy lifting” in making sensors wireless has nothing to do with the sensor’s capability. It will sense what it is supposed to. The larger tasks are designing the data acquisition boards, integrating processors, radio chips and analog to digital converters and creating the data set to name a few. Intuitively, sensor companies understand the steps but the task requires time and money which might not be invested. However, their customer base continues to ask about wireless as an option. The easiest way to make a sensor wireless is to bypass the “heavy lifting” and focus on packaging the products your customers require. OSM delivers the solution to “heavy lifting” with its line of products, tools and expertise. The WSeM™ is a drop in solution to make most sensors’ wireless. Not only does the WSeM™ allow quicker development but the resultant product is low power consumption and resides in the customer’s current IT environment.