Retrofit: analog becomes digital. We make sensors smart with IoT and technicians happy.
The Hallein-based company JES Elektronik GmbH is one of the leading providers of environmental sensor solutions for traffic applications. JES systems monitor lighting conditions in tunnels, air conditions in tunnels and underground car parks, and weather and road conditions on open stretches of road.
The products of JES Elektronik GmbH are convincing not only on the domestic market but are also found in major tunnel projects, such as the Žaba Tunnel in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is the country’s only road connection to the Mediterranean. Another prominent example is Brazil’s longest road tunnel, on the Rodovia dos Tamoios section, which can be operated sustainably, safely, and energy-efficiently thanks to electrical safety and control architecture from JES.
The success in national and international projects is based on a highly advanced product and service package that faces little competition:
- JES accompanies the entire life cycle of its systems, from planning through commissioning, maintenance, and renewal.
- Uncompromising measurement precision, a long service life, and easy maintainability create low life-cycle costs and make JES systems the first choice for tunnel operators.
The challenge
As a future-oriented company, JES Elektronik GmbH keeps a clear eye on the challenges that lead to success. To continuously expand its strong competitiveness and the benefit to its customers, the tunnel-safety experts have for years relied on the development of smart sensor technology.
Alongside developing new, smart sensor products, the ambitious goal is to make the large number of existing, installed analog sensors smart according to the retrofit principle.
In this way, analog sensors are to be upgraded from an outdated state to a state-of-the-art level of digitalized technology and meet the following key requirements:
- Real-time condition monitoring
- Utilization of measurement data from tunnel sensors
- Remote maintainability
- Configurability/parameterization of the sensors
- Predictive maintenance
- Asset management
- A prerequisite for Equipment as a Service (EaaS) offerings
The solution
Through intensive collaboration with the team at IoT Internet of Things GmbH, it was possible to digitalize the analog sensors via so-called “Smart Hubs” and connect them to the IoT platform IoTECPPRO. This is made possible by plug-in software modules that establish the sensor connectivity.
A win-win for JES and its customers: retrofit and brilliant – analog becomes digital!
By digitalizing the analog sensor systems and increasingly using new, smart sensor technology, a milestone in measurement technology is achieved – in tunnels and on open stretches of road:
+ Thanks to SmartHub, maintenance, calibration, and parameterization are now carried out
digitally, which means the sensors no longer have to be replaced regularly.
+ Tunnel operators benefit from major savings in time, staff, and material costs
+ Susceptibility to errors can be minimized, further increasing safety in the tunnels
+ The IoTECPRO software offers the customers of JES Elektronik GmbH a
dashboard as an Operations Control Centre, on which the generated sensor data
is visualized. The result is an enormous increase in efficiency compared to the
starting point, since until now the sensor data could only be read on site at the device.
+ Thanks to SmartHub, digital connectivity, data generation, and data utilization via
IoTECPRO, JES Elektronik GmbH has a highly efficient, easily scalable
product package that defines a new level of competitiveness on the tunnel-safety
systems market and can without doubt be regarded as a benchmark technology for the
industry.