• Maintenance and technological adaptation of the hydro-meteorological network of Piedmont
    CAE MAGAZINE n.19 - English Version - February 2021
    Maintenance and technological adaptation of the hydro-meteorological network of Piedmont

Maintenance and technological adaptation of the hydro-meteorological network of Piedmont

The weather and hydrometric monitoring network managed by ARPA Piedmont plays a strategic role in the control of the water balance and in the monitoring of the buildup of Po river’s floods; it includes over 400 measuring stations to which weather and hydrometric sensors are usually connected, but also sensors for measurement of snow depth, water and gamma radiation parameters. The stations are equipped with UHF transceivers and are polled by the control centre of Turin through a chain of repeaters.

CAE has won the tender for the renewal of the maintenance service, which is essential for keeping the network perfectly efficient, as well as for the technological adaptation of the stations and the connected transmission system.

The company shares the strategic importance that ARPA Piedmont has given to the UHF band radio communication network, as it can be considered the only alternative capable of guaranteeing the reliability necessary for a monitoring and warning system for the purposes of civil protection. For this reason, CAE has always invested in this technology and has offered a transmission system with a high level of standardization and innovation, thanks to a cutting-edge product: RÆVO radio. This product will not only allow the reduction of the polling cycle from 30 to 15 minutes, but it will also allow us to activate scenarios that require a more frequent acquisition of data, in case of temporary needs due, for example, to hydro-meteorological emergencies.

Being a product of the CAEtech line, the RÆVO radio is characterized by the use of diagnostic elements and by high levels of standardization; in fact, it allows interoperability with products of third-party manufacturers, thanks also to the compatibility with modern IoT protocols. 

As far as CAEtech products are concerned, for any intervention of evolutionary maintenance that may be required during the contract’s duration, the main technologies used will be:

PG10 and PG10R rain gauges

- ULM30 ultrasonic water level sensor/snow depth sensor

CompactPlus Datalogger

Particularly, CompactPlus datalogger is a latest generation product, with Linux operating system, allowing maximum flexibility in the implementation and development of customized applications; in order to facilitate these customized applications, the datalogger integrates and makes available a command interpreter that can use a simple language like Python, while for standard applications it supports plug 'n' play connections of the main sensors on the market. A first level of accessibility and interoperability provided by the CompactPlus datalogger is represented by the presence on board of a web server, which allows us to provide a website for the display, configuration and export of the data collected by the datalogger itself.

This is not a regular maintenance contract, but a huge and cutting-edge technological upgrade of one of the most impressive Italian regional monitoring networks.



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