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Q: What are the most common utility frustrations related to advanced metering infrastructure (AMI)?
A: With AMI, you’re looking at a significant 15+ year investment, and one of the biggest frustrations echoed today is the lack of interoperability among water meter manufacturers. Several years ago, Master Meter blazed a path toward interoperability with our Universal Interpreter RF Register System. This revolutionary technology allows a utility to retrofit most any meter brand build with a ubiquitous bayonet style design. Our Allegro Endpoint detects the magnetic signature of the meter’s measurement element’s coupling, and synthetically replicates the original manufacturer’s register technology.
Q: Are there other concerns attributable to endpoint technology that can cause these technologies to fail?
A: A pit-set environment is by far the harshest environment that an AMI endpoint will operate in, and it needs to be resistant to moisture penetration, rodent and insect damage, vandalism, and other corrosive elements which frequently affect wires and antennas in the pit. Master Meter has solved this issue with our UTG, or Under-the-Glass Encapsulation Technology, also incorporating a proprietary patent-pending dual-band antenna design. It is optimized for the system’s licensed frequency band, but also incorporates a feature that matches the RF shift as radio waves pass through water, resulting in increased transceiver sensitivity, and transmission performance. It’s a brilliantly designed endpoint.
Q: What is meant by “Under-the-Glass,” and how does this feature differentiate Allegro?
A: Master Meter’s proprietary patented UTG technology takes the entire RF circuitry, battery, dual-band antenna, and solid-state register, and encloses everything into a hermetically sealed, IP68-rated, hardened glass, and stainless steel enclosure. This eliminates the many potential human errors seen in other wired unit installations. It also reduces long-term maintenance and lifetime ownership costs.
Q: What problems might occur in the event of an AMI network outage, and how are these potential issues mitigated with Allegro’s new technology?
A: Allegro is intuitive, proactive, and intelligent. Allegro inherently initiates in drive-by (AMR) mode. Then, soon after detecting the Allegro Base Station’s fixed network tower ping, the endpoint automatically “shakes hands” with the specific tower. However, if a network outage occurs, the Allegro endpoint reverts back to drive-by mode until the network is successfully restored and detected, at which point it then automatically re-registers with the Allegro Base Station. Redundancy is accomplished by the base station logging meter consumption reads to ensure the data isn’t lost and can be accessed later.
