Ctek Industrial Controller Provides Assured Connectivity for SCADA Systems

Ctek has been providing standalone cellular automation, control and alarm products to the industrial market for over 14 years. The company’s products help customers control a variety of industrial applications such as wastewater management, tank level monitoring, solar energy, pumping stations, sign and lighting management and irrigation systems.

According to Research and Markets¹, the global SCADA market was $18.6B US in 2018 and is projected to grow to $26B by 2024 – a CAGR of 5.7%. The increased popularity of these systems is being driven by organization’s need to monitor and control remote equipment and the improved cost effectiveness of these solutions.  

Ctek’s portfolio ranges from cellular routers to complete “SCADA-in-a-box” solutions. These systems connect to both Modbus and discrete data acquisition and control devices, convert the data to actionable intelligence, transport the information over secure managed networks and present the results visually using Ctek’s integrated phone APPS and Ctek’s SkyCloud visual access and management system. All of these functions are performed at the edge of the network, without additional servers, SCADA systems or custom software. The company’s products can be deployed without software development. Operations simply defines the data they want to monitor and control and, via pull down menus, they can set up a complete network, including custom dashboards.  

With thousands of 2G and 3G devices deployed, Ctek wanted to develop a new LTE controller/internal router that could provide 4G LTE, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity.

Sierra Wireless Solution

Ctek worked with Sierra Wireless and its distributor GetWireless on early generations of its products. When faced with selecting a vendor for the new product, Ctek once again selected Sierra Wireless, because they knew they could count on both Sierra Wireless and GetWireless for engineering support. They also expected to be able to cut development time because of the common form factor and precertification that Sierra Wireless provides for its modules.