Monitoring remote sand levels for traction and braking

Application

Like many remote assets, sand boxes needed regular manual checks to maintain a safe level of sand availability for braking.  That’s the basic requirement.  In addition, Transportise sought to use external data sets like forecasted weather reports and track data to give digital insight into train traction and braking performance.

Accurately knowing the sand level at any point on diagram

Near real time knowledge of sand levels, weather conditions and the train’s location ensures appropriate action in a timely manner, where sand boxes need only be attended to when necessary.  This has saved many man hours.

Technology

This is an IIoT solution utilising cutting edge level sensors, an on/off sensor, a temperature sensor, and a humidity sensor.  An EN50155  bespoke power supply feeds both the level sensor and IoT sensors (one per hopper) and a wireless Communication Gateway (one per rake) to relay the data to the cloud.  

Data and Insights

As a brand new project, the actual data insights will not be shown.  However, the dashboard remains similar with clear graphs, geo-location, usage, alerts and alarms.

Read the longer story on this unique sanding project>>