AirVantage™ Smart Automation

Enable new revenue producing applications by quickly connecting industrial control systems to the AirVantage Platform

AirVantage Smart Automation simplifies the connection to industrial equipment and the creation of embedded business logic without programming. This enables equipment manufacturers and service providers to create new services and business offers for their customers, such as tiered monitoring and maintenance, demand response applications, and time- or location-based equipment usage pricing models.

Smart Automation leverages the AirVantage Platform to facilitate subscription, device and asset management through a remote M2M application. The Smart Automation extension integrates these capabilities with industrial control systems. AirVantage Smart Automation makes it easy to set up custom business logic to collect, sort, prioritize, send and store data without the need for programming. Existing backend systems can be integrated or new M2M applications can be implemented using standard web services APIs.

Sierra Wireless AirVantage Smart Automation connects industrial control systems to the AirVantage Platform, enabling the creation of new services that leverage industrial control information. AirVantage Smart Automation includes:

AirVantage Ready Agent for Smart Automation – Resides in the communications device and connects industrial equipment that uses standard industrial communications protocols to M2M applications over cellular networks.
AirVantage Configuration Wizard for Smart Automation – Uses a simple configuration user interface to create the embedded application logic.
AirVantage Web Services API – Integrates with existing backend systems or new M2M applications.

Features and benefits

AirVantage Smart Automation delivers numerous benefits to the M2M value chain, including machine manufacturers, system integrators and service and maintenance companies. Among the features and benefits:

Advanced application support: Deploy new services that reduce costs and increase system reliability. An example is premium hourly system monitoring that provides more accurate and sensitive monitoring for higher risk, higher value systems.
Distributed application reliability: Distribute the application to the embedded communications client and the server, which improves machine reliability by eliminating the need for machine-level programming of the industrial components.
Rapid deployment: Create and deploy next-generation industrial applications quickly, accelerating time-to-market for new services.
Remote application update: Install new industrial applications and upgrade existing applications by simply updating the AirVantage Ready Agent logic rather than changing the industrial component’s control logic, simplifying the process required to meet specific customers’ needs and reducing the number of field service trips required.
Anytime, anywhere access: Give users access to information and controls on remote machines anytime, from anywhere, increasing responsiveness and flexibility while controlling operating costs.
Precise configuration: Reduce data transmission costs by configuring the system to send data only when necessary, using AirVantage Smart Automation’s local alarm generation and data-filtering features.

Key Applications

Municipal Services

Waste water management
Water treatment management

Energy

Solar, Wind, Hydro Generation
Oil and Gas Extraction, Pipeline, and Storage Management
Building Energy and Water Management
Electric Vehicle Charging Station

Machines

Mobile Air Compressors
Vending Machines
Outdoor Advertising

Key Benefits

Benefits for the Developer

Eliminate M2M infrastructure development: no development required for wireless messaging, security, OS, Apps Server, databases and more
Eliminate operations and support application development: AirVantage Subscription Management, Device Management and Asset Management are ready for use
Reduce application development effort and time: leverage development tools, code generation tools and portal configuration tools
Improve machine control system reliability: business logic separated from machine control logic
Offer unique services for same machine model: use Asset Management to deploy unique services to different asset classes

Benefits for Operations & Support

Simplify M2M deployment: use Subscription Management to deploy one or 1000s of devices without operator support
Eliminate routine site visits: no need to visit sites to collect data or check status
Reduce data usage costs: leverage embedded business logic to collect data relevant to the application service level
Optimize network/device triage and support: use Device Management to debug network or device issues
Reduce operational support effort: use AirVantage Operating Portal support tools
Improve time to revenue: deploy applications faster with Subscription Management

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Overview

Develop

M2M cloud platform as a service ready for application development
AirVantage Configuration Wizard to connect industrial controls
Comprehensive Web Services API
M2M application development tools
Pre-built operational support applications

Deploy

AirVantage SubscriptionManagement for deployment support

Operate

AirVantage Subscription, Device and Asset Management for operational support
Connectivity logic managed separately from control system logic
Ability to control the machine control system from the M2M application

AirVantage Smart Automation includes:

AirVantage Operating Portal: scalable, secure and open web self-care interface with comprehensive M2M services to easily manage your M2M and consumer connected devices.


AirVantage Subscription Management	AirVantage Device Management	AirVantage Asset Management

AirVantage Developer Suite: simple, intuitive and powerful set of tools that allow those new to M2M and wireless, as well as experts in the field, to manage embedded development, Operating Portal configuration and innovative Web Services application development.
Web APIs to connect web-based custom applications and widgets to device data
Smart Automation Ready Agent: ready-to-use, open, embedded agent connects a wide range of devices to the Services Platform

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Specifications

Hardware Support
Supports AirLink™, AirPrime™, or third-party hardware

Smart Automation Ready Agent comes pre-integrated into the AirLink and AirPrime products below and is portable to Linux host processors, which interface to all Sierra Wireless products or third-party modules with Linux driver support.

AirLink	AirPrime
Fastrack Series (except CDMA) With RS485 or Ethernet Modules	WMP Series
GL Series	Q26 Extreme Series
M2M BoxPro	SL6x

Modbus Support

Modbus is a serial communications protocol for use with PLCs and has become a de-facto standard communications protocol in industrial control applications. There are three variants of Modbus protocols supported by AirVantage Smart Automation:

Modbus RTU —Used in serial communication and makes use of a compact, binary representation of the data for protocol communication.
Modbus ASCII — Used in serial communication and makes use of ASCII characters for protocol communication; also uses a longitudinal redundancy check checksum.
Modbus TCP/IP or Modbus TCP — Modbus variant for communications over TCP/IP networks.

Services Platform
Development benefits

Quickly build powerful M2M applications using Web Services APIs
Significantly improve time to market
Eliminate M2M client-server infrastructure development
Eliminate operations and support application development
Reduce application development effort and time

Operations and support benefits

Simplify M2M device deployment efforts
Reduce site visits and control data usage costs
Reduce operational support effort

Platform security and reliability

Secured and monitored 24/7/365 with alarms, cameras, proximity and biometric man-trap access points
Tier III configured redundant UPS and backup generation systems
SAS70 and CICA5970 certified

Operating Portal
Subscription Management

Direct and secure link to Mobile Network Operator’s activation infrastructure
Subscription lifecycle management
Billing plan selection, management and data usage alerts

Device Management

Wireless device configuration and network profile setup
Direct device control using AT or OMA-DM commands
Firmware over-the-air campaign management
Differential updates to significantly reduce data consumption of each update

Asset Management

Asset data available from the Services Platform web services APIs
Embedded application software over-the-air campaign management
Asset data collection, logging, search and event management
Two-way data exchange, including asset control commands

Ready Agent

Multi-bearer wireless and wired communications support
and management
Integrated support for Subscription, Device and Asset Management
Device firmware and asset application updates
Secure and efficient data exchange protocol
AirPrime™ integration included in Open AT devices or Linux
SDK support
AirLink integration included with Fastrack and GL series or Linux
SDK support
Third party integration capable with a highly portable Linux compatible
Ready Agent SDK

Developer Suite
Based on the open source Eclipse™ tools development platform

Embedded development tools

Based on existing embedded Eclipse IDEs
Integrated Ready Agent C, C++, Java or LUA APIs for application development
Optional component-based, graphical modeling development environment
Automatic embedded application update

M2M application development tools

Web and mobile application development tools
Google gadget generation tools
Operating Portal graphical configuration tools

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Support

AirVantage Technical Support Centre provides a secure website which optimizes data exchanges as well as requests processes. To access AirVantage Support Centre you will need a Sierra Wireless account.

Contact AirVantage Support Centre.