Omnivoltaic BridgeWare™ Module - Making Devices Visible on the Cloud

The devices used in the off-grid sector often face power and computing limitations. This makes it very difficult when looking at how to make these devices visible on the cloud. Omnivoltaic has developed the BridgeWare™ to address this challenge. The hardware devices and embedded firmware form a layer of physical connection and data abstraction between off-grid device and the cloud.

Solutions

The basic solution concept is simple: the hardware interface components handle device specific handshake, data query, and package the data streams as messages to the Omnivoltaic device Messaging Central. Combining its experience in both device manufacturing and device cloud representation, Omnivoltaic is uniquely positioned to create low-cost and “offline tolerant” devices and firmware that form data links to the cloud and internally referred to as BridgeWare™. All configurations of a BridgeWare™ module has 3 components:

• Physical Device Interface (DI). The key to this component is the adaptability to wide range of device types and capabilities.

• Data Packaging. Data is organized into logical structures, making it possible for discovery and interpretation.

• Uplink Data must be made available in the cloud, and the challenge to overcome is Intermittency Tolerance. Edge Omnivoltaic has developed both embedded and add-on types of BridgeWare™ modules that are at the center of its off-grid system products, which typically consist of multiple components such as Battery Management Systems (BMS), Inverters and User Interface (UI). A wide range of device operational data can be obtained and propagated to the cloud as JSON objects. One key feature of Omnivoltaic BridgeWare™ is its tolerance to intermittent data links. Continuous data feeds via GSM or Lora networks, or intermittent data burst via phones or even IC cards can all be handled. To be able to handle unreliable data connection, or the complete lack of it, certain data local storage buffer is also part of the design balance.

Message Packing Data must be eventually discovered and interpreted. Omnivoltaic has created and published a device data general attribute profile protocol (GATT), similar to the standard used by BLE industry. (link to Profile). The protocol is influenced by MQTT messaging standard, and indeed is implemented and tested on Omnivoltaic global MQTT broker.

Uplink Omnivoltaic BridgeWare™ transmission is an application layer protocol, so is largely agnostic of specific data link layer implementation. However, modules shipped by Omnivoltaic take specific modality of connectivity. In most locations, GSM based technology is used because of its availability.

Application and Presentation Layer Omnivoltaic Bridgeware™ can be used for various applications, such as;

• Asset Management – where very limited and infrequent data exchange, for example once a month, can support operations such as PAYG token generation.

• Device Status Login – distributors are able to monitor device usage and troubleshoot any problems.

• Asset location – GPS enabled Bridgeware™ models can provide asset location tracking and geo-fencing functionality Through Omnivoltaic Bridgeware™, off-grid devices can be deployed anywhere, making them easily discoverable to the Internet, the age of Internet of Energy Things (IoET) is upon us.