A locally-developed remote management system for telecommunication power plants has resulted in reduced maintenance costs and a longer life expectancy for rectifiers.
Although telecom network operators continuously upgrade their network components to include very modern technology, this equipment is still very dependent on DC rectifier systems to supply the power. As such, the state of health of the rectifier (and standby battery) components, are vital for telecommunication operations.
Saab Grintek Power Technologies has been a long-term supplier of rectifier systems to the telecommunications market and has a large installed base with most major operators. Installed units in the field vary from 500-2000 per operator of various capacities. The typical installed base represents an investment of R100 m to R150 m per operator.
To continuously monitor the status of all network elements, operators deploy a small group of highly-skilled technical resources in a central national network control centre to identify faults, re-direct traffic, re-configure problem equipment or dispatch work teams with the necessary skills to the remote problem site. Element-management software communicates with equipment on remote sites to update the operational situation. This capability is especially important in the African context with its large distances and relatively small skills base. Therefore, most modern telecom equipment features standard protocols for remote management to allow a small core of specialists to effectively direct and control a geographically widely spread workforce.
Remote management was not, however, a standard feature on equipment supplied more than five years ago and a typical supplier response would be to recommend a replacement programme for legacy units without the necessary remote capability. However, this forklift approach is not the natural choice for a technology specialist such as Grintek.
Instead, a development project was initiated to effect the radical improvement of the legacy Grintek rectifiers' functionality, to enable the new remote management capability. In this process the programming space in the original processing unit had to be increased through a unique memory paging concept. This allowed the addition of a boot-loading functionality for remote software updates to legacy controllers. The upgrading requirement was thus limited to the replacement of the control firmware with a suitable interface kit, instead of replacing equipment.
In parallel, a modern element-management software application was developed for the central network control centre to extract the necessary information using the proprietary communication protocols of the legacy equipment. Using a client-server architecture, the WINGT package combines network-wide status reporting with equipment-specific drill-down capability on one integrated platform, allowing the control centre operator to monitor remote equipment operation, identify fault alarm types, modify equipment settings, upgrade firmware, log equipment events, report equipment configurations and monitor on-site maintenance teams.
This development has already provided rectifier lifetime extension to one major network operator thereby protecting an investment of approximately R100 m in the installed base through a relatively small upgrade cost of less than 2%.
Fully-developed in South Africa for local requirements, this project is an example of the value-add capabilities provided by Saab Grintek.
For more information contact Linda Weaver, Saab Grintek Technologies, +27 (0)12 672 8216, lweaver@grintek.com
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