University of Huddersfield (www.hud.ac.uk) researchers are helping Addingham-based Mainstream Measurements (www.mainstream-measurements.com) to use the latest communications technology to make its products even more successful in export markets.

The firm’s advanced flow-meters have been exported throughout Europe and to the Middle East, Malaysia, Japan, Australia and Africa — plus North and South America.

Now, the company has formed a £120,000 Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP), with the university to develop software and communication mechanisms that will allow the meters to be read remotely (and to integrate them into standardised industrial control systems).

This will be a big advantage for those who need to monitor flow in order to deal with issues such as blockages and flood risks — and for those monitoring flow in remote areas.

The challenge of the KTP is that there is no dominating data communication protocol in the Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure, and using a cellular infrastructure (such as 3G or 4G) would consume too much power.

The LoRaWAN low-power data transfer protocol for wide area networks could be the answer, and this is being investigated by the KTP associate, Sean Howson.

Now based at Mainstream, he will work towards a Master’s by Research degree during the two-year KTP.