Wireless devices inside the accelerator tunnel

[Bob Gunion <rfgunion@lbl.gov>]

Hi all,

At the ALS we have a lack of adequate temperature monitoring on our magnet coils.  We would like to address this, but the cost of wiring to all the thermocouple modules, between power and serial or ethernet communications, is quite high, so we though we might try some wireless devices.  There are some on the market (see the links below) that can handle 4-16 thermocouples apiece and run on batteries, eliminating all wiring except to the thermocouples themselves.  A self-healing mesh network like Zigbee or Wireless-HART would be ideal, but we are also considering 802.11b/g-type wireless (which has the added benefit of providing laptop/tablet access inside the tunnel during shutdowns).

So, I'm soliciting advice and experience from the community: 

- Has anyone tried a solution like this in other accelerators?  

- Have any particular devices worked well, or not?  

- Have any radiation damage issues been addressed using shielding?

Here's some links to candidate devices:

http://www2.emersonprocess.com/en-us/brands/rosemount/temperature/high-density-measurement/848t-wireless/pages/index.aspx

http://www.industrialinterface.co.uk/z-head-4-tc-multi-input-thermocouple-input-wireless-transmitter

http://www.omega.com/pptst/OM-WLS-TEMP.html

http://www.omega.com/pptst/OM-WLS-TC.html

http://www.yokogawa.com/us/products/industrial-networking/wireless-field-networks/wireless-temperature-transmitters/multi-input-temperature-transmitter-ytmx580.htm

http://search.ni.com/nisearch/app/main/p/bot/no/ap/tech/lang/en/pg/1/sn/catnav:pm,n8:4/q/wls-9213/

Thanks,

Bob Gunion